Head of Technical Architecture - AI - Contract/Inside IR35 - £850-£900 P.D

Project overview

AgileSource are seeking an Head of Technical Architecture to lead the architectural strategy, governance, and technical direction for a portfolio of AI-enabled digital products and services.

This is a senior leadership position responsible for defining architecture standards, shaping enterprise-wide technical strategy, and ensuring the successful delivery of scalable, secure, cloud-native solutions. You will work closely with executive stakeholders, product leaders, engineering teams, and architects to establish best practices for the adoption and delivery of AI technologies at scale.

Key Responsibilities

Essential Experience

Technical Skills

Desirable Experience

Personal Attributes

• Define and own the overall technical architecture strategy for AI-enabled products and platforms.
• Lead and develop a team of architects, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement.
• Establish architecture governance, standards, principles, and assurance processes.
• Provide strategic leadership across cloud, infrastructure, security, integration, data, and application architectures.
• Drive the adoption of modern engineering practices including CI/CD, DevSecOps, automation, and cloud-native development.
• Support the design and delivery of AI and machine learning solutions from concept through to production.
• Collaborate with senior business and technology stakeholders to align architecture with organisational objectives.
• Ensure solutions meet security, compliance, resilience, and operational requirements.
• Provide technical oversight across multiple programmes and delivery teams.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and identify opportunities to leverage AI strategically.
• Proven experience operating as a Head of Architecture, Chief Architect, Enterprise Architect, or similar senior technology leadership role.
• Demonstrable experience delivering AI, Machine Learning, or Generative AI solutions into production environments.
• Strong background in enterprise and solution architecture across large-scale organisations.
• Experience leading architecture teams and developing architecture capability.
• Expertise in cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform.
• Strong understanding of microservices, APIs, event-driven architecture, and serverless technologies.
• Experience implementing architecture governance and technical assurance frameworks.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills with experience influencing senior executives and leadership teams.
• Strong appreciation of security, resilience, and operational best practices.
• Enterprise Architecture
• AI & Generative AI Technologies
• Cloud Architecture (AWS, Azure, GCP)
• Serverless Technologies
• DevOps & CI/CD
• Software Engineering Practices
• Security Architecture & Threat Modelling
• API & Integration Architecture
• Cloud-Native Platforms
• Agile Delivery Methodologies
• Platform Engineering
• Observability & Monitoring
• Experience within highly regulated or large-scale public sector environments.
• Knowledge of AI governance, responsible AI principles, and AI assurance frameworks.
• Background in large digital transformation programmes.
• Experience working across complex multi-supplier environments.
• Familiarity with modern data platforms and analytics architectures.
• Strategic thinker with strong commercial and technical acumen.
• Confident leader able to build credibility with senior stakeholders.
• Strong decision-maker with excellent communication skills.
• Passionate about innovation, emerging technologies, and AI.
• Able to balance long-term architectural vision with practical delivery outcomes.

Project details

• Start: ASAP
• Duration: 6 Months
• Location: London, Bristol or Manchester, UK, GB