Lead Azure Cloud Architect - SC Clearance

IBM; Leicester; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday

Private medical

Dental & optical cover

Life assurance

Group pension plan

Sabbatical programs

Maternity leave

Maternity returners scheme

Paternity leave

Employee Assistance Program

Online shopping discounts

Job summary

IBM Consulting UK FutureNow is seeking a senior Cloud Architect Lead to work with major clients on hybrid cloud and AI initiatives. You will lead delivery engagements, coach architects and engineers, and partner with sales to shape roadmaps while travelling across the UK and Europe as needed.

You will partner with the wider IBM Sales team to manage customer relationships, design cloud solutions, and oversee CI/CD and DevOps practices across projects.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with Cloud Architecture Design and patterns.
• Experience leading cloud architects and delivery engagements.
• Advanced knowledge of Azure or AWS.
• Experience with IaaS, PaaS, SaaS concepts.
• DevOps leadership and CI/CD pipelines.
• Security, networking, virtualization basics.
• Coding/scripting (Bash, Python, PowerShell).
• Fluent English communication.

Responsibilities

• Participating in customer projects from infrastructure builds to migrations.
• Coaching and leading a team of architects and engineers.
• Managing customer relationships and roadmaps with the wider Sales team.
• Supporting presales and sales architecture.

Skills

Cloud Architecture

Azure/AWS

DevOps

CI/CD

Leadership

Pre-sales

English fluency

Education

Bachelor's Degree

Tools

Kubernetes

OpenShift

Job description

Introduction

At IBM Consulting UK FutureNow, you’ll build a career at the forefront of hybrid cloud and AI, working with leading clients across the public and private sectors.

You’ll collaborate with top industry professionals, gain hands on experience with cutting edge technologies, and deliver solutions that create real business impact. From day one, you’ll work on meaningful, high profile programmes that stretch your skills and accelerate your growth.

We invest heavily in you—supporting continuous learning, in demand skills development, and long term career progression. You’ll thrive in a flexible, inclusive environment that values curiosity, encourages reinvention, and recognises what makes you unique.

We Offer

• Tools and policies to support your work-life balance from flexible working approaches, sabbatical programs, paid paternity leave, maternity leave and an innovative maternity returners scheme
• More traditional benefits, such as 25 days holiday (in addition to public holidays), private medical, dental & optical cover, online shopping discounts, an Employee Assistance Program, life assurance and a group pension plan through salary sacrifice.

Your Role And Responsibilities

• Participating in various customer projects, from new infrastructure builds and migrations to audits and big data
• Implementing configuration management infrastructure
• Coaching and leading the small team of architects and engineers, leading delivery engagements, and supporting presales and sales architecture
• People line management such as appraisals, holiday approval, allocating work resources, day to day people management
• You will become a trusted advisor for high-profile enterprise businesses and jointly manage the customer relationship and roadmap with the wider Sales team
• You’ll have a selection of different ‘hats’ to put on and have the luxury of following customer projects from start to release

As we have varying opportunities to work internationally, some readiness to travel in the UK and other locations in Europe is required.

Preferred Education

Bachelor's Degree

Required Technical And Professional Expertise

• Hands-on experience with Cloud Architecture Design and/or Cloud Architectural Patterns for Development
• Experience leading other Cloud Architects and leading delivery engagements
• Advanced knowledge of Azure or AWS (multiple cloud providers is a plus)
• Solid engineering/technical background/hands-on experience with conceptualizing, strategizing, and architecting cloud solutions.
• Windows and/or Linux sys op background
• Previous experience in the design and delivery of systems based on IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS offerings, as well as exposure to different architecture models
• DevOps skills for leading the team and consulting the customer
• Experience with building CI/CD pipelines
• Knowledge of security, network, virtualization, load balancer, storage, and database
• Container technologies experience (e.g. Kubernetes, OpenShift)
• Hands-on experience with IaaC for managing the cloud
• Coding/scripting skills (Bash, Python, Powershell, or similar)
• Active customer consultant and pre-sales attitude are a must
• Fluent communication skills in English

All applicants must have the right to work in the UK and must meet the criteria & be willing to go through Security Clearance.