Enterprise AI Architect

Role: Enterprise AI Architect (Contract)

Location: UK, Remote

Day Rate: £650-£700 per day (Outside IR35)

Contract Length: 5-month initial contract - likely extended to 12 months

The opportunity

Our client, an established UK technology business, is building the foundations for safe, rapid and well-governed AI use.

They need an experienced Enterprise AI Architect to lead the AI architecture workstream of a major transformation programme, taking a draft design to an agreed, buildable architecture that engineers actually use.

The approach centres on a three-zone model (Ideas › Build › Run) and a managed AI gateway.

You’ll challenge it, strengthen it and see it into build, then hand over to an internal successor.

What you’ll do

• Review the draft architecture and deliver a detailed multi-layer design, ending in a build specification
• Lead AI gateway evaluation and selection (options may include LiteLLM, Kong and Azure APIM)
• Design the request pipeline, environments and egress controls, and Entra ID identity, including agent identity
• Define supply-chain controls and model provider, residency and isolation strategy
• Build a permission-aware grounding approach so AI only sees data users are entitled to
• Own DLP and guardrail policy, the security control specification and the threat model
• Run use-case governance from idea to production: the register, release gates and approved tools
• Deliver reference patterns for priority initiatives, such as AI-assisted software delivery, ML routing and customer service agents
• Chair the Design Authority and Technical Design Review, and mentor your internal successor

What you’ll bring

• Essential
• Enterprise architecture and Zero Trust experience
• Deep knowledge of Entra ID and conditional access
• Egress and network controls in production
• LLM gateways, model routing and supply-chain controls
• Desirable
• Running an LLM gateway in production
• RAG over governed data
• MCP security
• Enterprise security reviews
• Chairing design forums