Lead Technical Architect - AI & Cloud Architecture

Project overview

Contract Length: Until 30/04/27

Project details

IR35: In scope

We are seeking an experienced Lead Technical Architect to support the development of secure, scalable AI platforms and cloud infrastructure within a complex public sector environment.

This is a strategic and hands-on architecture role, requiring someone who can identify opportunities for AI adoption, translate them into practical technical solutions, and lead their implementation while ensuring robust security, governance, and architectural assurance.

The successful candidate will bring extensive multi-cloud architecture experience, strong Google Cloud Platform (GCP) expertise, and a security-first approach to designing enterprise AI and cloud solutions.

Key Responsibilities

Essential Skills & Experience

• Define architectural strategies, roadmaps, and principles for AI-enabled platforms and agentic workflows.
• Identify opportunities to implement AI solutions and lead their technical design and execution.
• Design secure cloud landing zones, scalable microservices, and modular cloud architectures.
• Establish technology-agnostic integration layers and API architectures connecting enterprise systems with AI platforms and workflows.
• Design and implement AI safety controls, including human-in-the-loop approval mechanisms, identity federation, prompt protection, and personally identifiable information (PII) masking.
• Configure and oversee security controls, including Google Cloud VPC Service Controls.
• Make architectural decisions that balance scalability, security, performance, and operational requirements.
• Lead architectural governance and assurance activities, including technical design reviews, data protection assessments, and cyber security checkpoints.
• Ensure alignment with enterprise architecture standards, security policies, and relevant government and NCSC guidance.
• Communicate architectural decisions, technical risks, and trade-offs to senior stakeholders.
• Provide technical leadership, guidance, and coaching to engineering teams and delivery partners.
• Significant experience leading enterprise cloud architecture across multi-cloud environments, particularly GCP and/or AWS.
• Strong hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform and VPC Service Controls.
• Proven expertise in secure cloud landing zones, cloud infrastructure design, Identity and Access Management (IAM), and identity federation.
• Experience designing scalable microservices, modular components, and enterprise integration architectures.
• Demonstrable experience identifying AI opportunities and translating them into secure, production-ready solutions.
• Knowledge of AI guardrails, agentic workflows, human-in-the-loop controls, prompt security, and PII protection.
• Experience designing vendor-neutral systems, API layers, and integrations across enterprise platforms.
• Strong understanding of architectural governance, security assurance, Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), and cyber security standards.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to present complex technical concepts to senior leadership.
• Proven ability to lead architectural decisions, manage technical risks, and guide multidisciplinary delivery teams.
• Start: flexible
• Location: United Kingdom, GB