Lead Enterprise Architect

Anglian Water Services; Huntingdon; Hybrid; GBP 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading UK water services provider is seeking a Lead Enterprise Architect to drive innovation and guide strategic decisions. This hybrid role based in Huntingdon or Lincoln offers the chance to influence digital transformation while managing a talented team. The successful candidate will have extensive experience in customer-facing architecture and Agile environments. Culture includes flexibility, competitive benefits, and real opportunities for impact and leadership development. Closing date for applications is January 11, 2026.

Benefits

Full private healthcare with no excess

26 days leave + Bank Holidays

Flexible working culture

Competitive pension scheme

Life Assurance at eight times your salary

Personal Accident cover

Bonus Scheme

Qualifications

• Significant experience in a customer-facing architecture role.
• Experience in an Agile delivery function promoting continuous integration.
• Ability to form relationships with senior stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Guide digital initiatives and architectural decisions.
• Lead the Enterprise Architecture team and governance processes.
• Develop reference architectures and align principles with business strategy.

Skills

EA best practices

Customer-facing architecture experience

Agile delivery experience

Stakeholder relationship management

Coaching technical resources

Knowledge management

EA modeling languages

People management

Tools

Microsoft technologies

SAP

Job description

Circa £80k, salary dependant on skills and experience

Permanent

Full time with the flexibility for part-time

Hybrid role, working from Huntingdon or Lincoln

Anglian Water offers a flexible approach, this role provides you the flexibility to work from home and from either our Huntingdon or Lincoln office.

Drive innovation, guide decisions, and shape the architecture of tomorrow.

The Lead Enterprise Architect is a strategic partner to the business, aligning organisational goals and capabilities with technical architecture to drive digital transformation and innovation.

As a senior member of the Digital Architecture Practice, you will provide trusted Enterprise Architecture leadership across multiple business areas. You’ll support the development of digital strategy and guide both individual and cross-cutting architectural decisions, ensuring technology solutions are aligned with business priorities.

Using your deep expertise across architecture domains, you will shape and influence digital initiatives, providing strategic direction that enables scalable, secure, and future-ready solutions. You’ll promote adaptive and distributed decision‑making, working closely with business leaders, product owners, and technical teams to embed architectural thinking into product development and delivery.

You will take a cross‑organisational view of the architecture landscape, identifying synergies, reducing duplication, and managing shared risks. By maintaining a clear view of dependencies and road‑maps, you’ll help define strategies that maximise value and optimise outcomes across the enterprise.

In addition, this role includes people leadership responsibility for the Enterprise Architecture team. You’ll provide direction, coaching, and performance management, supporting the ongoing development of the team and ensuring it operates effectively in line with organisational and practice objectives.

What You’ll Be Doing

As Lead Enterprise Architect, you will act as a strategic partner to the business, translating organisational goals into clear, actionable architectural direction. You will build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders, guiding digital initiatives, fostering collaboration, and promoting innovation and continuous improvement across the organisation.

You will lead enterprise architecture activities, developing and maintaining reference architectures, defining principles and guardrails, and ensuring alignment between business strategy and technical delivery. You’ll provide guidance and mentorship to architects and teams, facilitating informed decision‑making, optimising road‑maps, and managing risks across the architecture landscape.

In addition, you will lead and develop the Enterprise Architecture team, championing a high‑performing, accountable, and collaborative culture. You will oversee governance processes, maintain EA tools and practices, and drive consistency and innovation across the Digital Architecture Practice, ensuring architecture delivers real value to the business.

As a valued employee, you’ll be entitled to:

• Full private healthcare with no excess
• 26 days leave, rising with service + Bank Holidays, with the option to swap Christmas and Easter holidays for those celebrated by your religion
• A flexible working culture
• Competitive pension scheme – we double‑match your contributions up to 6%
• Life Assurance at eight times your salary
• Personal Accident cover – up to 5x your salary
• Bonus Scheme

What does it take to be a Lead Enterprise Architect

We’re looking for a detail‑centric, strategically focused leader who combines strong programme delivery and influencing skills with the credibility to translate complex technical concepts into clear business insight — someone who remains calm under pressure, communicates with confidence, and brings the self‑motivation and determination needed to drive meaningful progress.

Skills and Qualifications:

• Being an EA enthusiast with a passion and knowledge of architecture best practices, patterns, standards, and frameworks.
• Significant experience in a customer‑facing architecture role responsible for development of technical capabilities and road‑maps aligned to customer demand and industry trends.
• Experience of operating within an Agile delivery function and culture of continuous integration, delivery & improvement.
• Experience working in a matrix‑managed organisation.
• A strong ability to form good relationships with a diverse set of very senior stakeholders in all parts of an organisation and able to facilitate conflict resolution and negotiation.
• Experience of coaching technical delivery resources to ensure the appropriate interpretation and adoption of practices.
• Familiar with a broad range of technology concepts and vendors (particularly Microsoft and SAP).
• Knowledge‑management skills with experience of building knowledge repositories that encourage collaboration and inputs.
• Experience or knowledge of EA modelling languages including ArchiMate.
• Experience of operating and defining strategies, and future and transition states within a large complex enterprise.
• Experience of people management

Why Apply?

This is a unique opportunity to shape the digital future of Anglian Water, influencing how technology and business strategy come together to drive transformation and innovation. You’ll work closely with senior stakeholders, lead complex architectural decisions, and have the chance to make a real, tangible impact across the organisation.

You’ll also lead a high‑performing Enterprise Architecture team, develop your leadership skills, and contribute to a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement, and innovation. If you’re passionate about shaping enterprise‑wide architecture, solving complex challenges, and driving meaningful change, this role offers both influence and career growth.

Closing date: 11th January 2026

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