Principal/Domain Architect - Modernisation & Transformation

Royal London; City of Edinburgh; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Principal Architect to lead the transformation of its technology estate. This pivotal role involves modernizing legacy platforms and ensuring that architectural decisions align with long-term member value and regulatory requirements. You will work closely with engineering teams to translate architecture into deployable solutions while fostering collaboration across business and technology leadership. If you have a passion for cloud technologies and a desire to make a significant impact in financial services, this opportunity is for you. Join a forward-thinking company that values innovation and commitment to excellence.

Benefits

28 days annual leave

14% employer matching pension scheme

Private medical insurance

Inclusive workplace culture

Qualifications

• Proven experience in enterprise or solution architecture within regulated industries.
• Deep knowledge of mainframe modernization and migration strategies.
• Expertise in cloud architectures and microservices.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the evolution of the technology estate.
• Assess and decompose legacy applications for microservices transition.
• Establish architectural guardrails and governance.

Skills

Enterprise Architecture

Solution Architecture

Cloud Architectures (Microsoft Azure, AWS, GCP)

Microservices Architectures

Domain-Driven Design

Event-Driven Systems

API-Led Integration

Architectural Frameworks (TOGAF, Zachman)

Architecture Governance

Excellent Communication Skills

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field

Job description

Press Tab to Move to Skip to Content Link

Select how often (in days) to receive an alert:

Date: 2 May 2025

Company: Royal London Group

Job Title: Principal/Domain Architect - Modernisation & Transformation

Contract Type: Permanent

Location: Edinburgh OR Alderley Edge

Working style: Hybrid 50% home/office based

As a Principal Architect, you will be at the forefront of transforming our technology estate while maintaining the stability and trust that our members expect. You will play a key role in modernising our legacy platforms, ensuring that architectural decisions are aligned with long-term member value, regulatory requirements, and responsible digital transformation.

The ideal candidate will have proven experience establishing architectural governance and a thorough understanding of best in breed technology options and vendors. You will have extensive experience working across complex matrix organisations and will be hungry to continually improve and adapt in a fast-paced environment.

The Principal/Domain Architect - Modernisation & Transformation will be aligned to business areas and Technology Platforms across Pensions, Protection, Long Term Savings, Long Standing Customers, Infrastructure and Cloud Technologies, and Operational Data

If you are passionate about cloud technologies and want to make a real impact within a forward-thinking company, we want to hear from you. Come on board and help us shape the future of financial services.

Key Responsibilities –

• Architecture Leadership: Define and drive the evolution of our technology estate, balancing long-term modernisation with immediate business needs.
• Monolith to Microservices Transition: Assess and decompose legacy monolithic applications, applying Domain-Driven Design (DDD), event-driven architectures, and modern architectural patterns to enable a transition to microservices-based solutions.
• Sustainable Cloud Adoption: Define and execute a pragmatic modernisation strategy, ensuring a responsible transition from legacy mainframe-based systems to cloud-native, scalable architectures (Microsoft Azure and AWS currently). Lead the transition of on-premises workloads to the Cloud, leveraging appropriate migration patterns (e.g., rehost, refactor, rearchitect).
• Data and Integration driven: Consider integration opportunities and approaches, adopting event-driven architectures, APIs, and messaging patterns to improve interoperability across platforms.
• Architecture Standards & Governance: Establish clear architectural guardrails that balance innovation with risk mitigation. Working with the leadership and peers to enforce frameworks, guardrails, and best practices to ensure consistency across domains.
• Collaboration & Coaching: Work closely with engineering teams to translate architecture into deployable solutions, educating colleagues and stakeholders.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Partner with business and Technology leadership, risk & compliance teams to align technical roadmaps with organisational priorities to ensure that modernization efforts are business-aligned and value-driven.
• Member-Focused Architecture: Ensure that architectural decisions support operational resilience, regulatory compliance, and long-term member benefits.
• Legacy & Modern Integration: Guide the organisation through the evolution from monolithic applications towards modern, API-led, event-driven architectures.

Key Skills & Experience

• Proven experience in enterprise or solution architecture within regulated industries, preferably financial services, pensions, or protection.
• Deep knowledge of mainframe modernization and migration strategies.
• Expertise in cloud architectures (Microsoft Azure, AWS, GCP), including compute, storage, distribution and orchestration
• Strong understanding of microservices architectures, domain-driven design, event-driven systems, and API-led integration.
• Knowledge of architectural frameworks (TOGAF, Zachman, C4 modelling).
• Experience in defining and implementing architecture governance in complex environments.
• Excellent communication skills, able to lead business and technical discussions effectively.

About Royal London

We’re the UK’s largest mutual life, pensions and investment company, offering protection, long-term savings and asset management products and services.

OurPeople Promise to our colleagues is that we will all work somewhere inclusive, responsible, enjoyable and fulfilling. This is underpinned by our Spirit of Royal London values; Empowered, Trustworthy, Collaborate, Achieve.

We've always been proud to reward employees by offering great workplace benefits such as 28 days annual leave in addition to bank holidays, an up to 14% employer matching pension scheme and private medical insurance. You can see all our benefits here -Our Benefits

Inclusion, diversity and belonging

We’re anInclusive employer. We celebrate and value different backgrounds and cultures across Royal London. Our diverse people and perspectives give us a range of skills which are recognised and respected – whatever their background.