Senior Infrastructure Architect - Network/Security

To act as the Council'ssenior technical advisor across security, applications, infrastructure, data and networks, with responsibility for collaborating to define and govern an effective enterprise technology architecture to support organisational objectives. The role needs to balance strategic leadership with rapid, near-term decision making, including the consideration of solution design options for individual solutions to enable rapid and safe re-build following a recent cyber-attack and to provide the Cyber Recovery Board and senior leaders with clear, evidence-based recommendations on technology direction, aligned to the Council's emerging Strategy.

A key responsibility is to work with the Cyber Recovery Programme Director to establish architectural standards and to chair Technical Design Authority (TDA), providing expert guidance, advice, constructive challenge and ultimately decision making within delegated parameters, for major technical decisions.

Key Responsibilities: Strategic Architecture Leadership

• Work with the Programme Director and collaboratively across the organisation to develop architecture standards, governance and to develop and maintain the Council's enterprise architecture.
• Translate vision and requirements into actionable technology designs and roadmaps.
• Provide clear and evidence based advice to senior leadership on security, design options and relative risks.
• Chair the TDA, ensuring robust governance of technical decisions.
• Review, challenge, and approve solution designs, ensuring alignment with architectural standards and emerging strategic direction.
• Identify and critically appraise technical risks providing clear mitigation options to leadership.
• Embed security-by-design principles across all technology domains.

• Lead the evaluation of new technologies, tools, and platforms, balancing innovation with risk and cost.
• Oversee the design of complex solutions, ensuring they are secure, scalable, and maintainable.
• Ensure architectural documentation, patterns, and standards are maintained and communicated effectively and that this practice is Embedded within the Council team.
• Transfer knowledge through doing, working closely with all DDaT capabilities in the Council.
• Work closely with Information Security colleagues and with external partners to ensure assurance in relation to design recommendations.

• Deep experience in enterprise or solution architecture within a complex, multi-technology environment and ideally within a large, complex local authority setting.
• Deep understanding of:
• Security architecture (identity, access, threat modelling, compliance)
• Applications (enterprise systems, integration patterns, cloud-native design)
• Infrastructure (compute, storage, virtualisation, cloud platforms)
• Networks (LAN/WAN, Firewalls, routing, zero-trust principles)
• Proven experience leading or contributing to a Technical Design Authority.
• Strong track record of producing clear, strategic recommendations and influencing senior stakeholders.
• Comfortable in delivering constructive, evidence based challenge.
• Demonstrable experience designing secure, scalable, and resilient solutions.
• Experience working with cloud platforms and hybrid environments.
• TOGAF or equivalent experience/qualification/s.
• Experience leading or mentoring technical teams.
• Effective communicator, especially in detail to technical teams and at strategic level to Programme Board and Executive leaders.