Location: Northampton (Hybrid 2 days onsite)
Contract Duration: Until 31st December 2025
Day Rate: Up to £410 per day Inside IR35
Security Clearance: Candidate must be eligible for BPSS
Role Overview: We are seeking an experienced Enterprise Architect to lead the development and ownership of technology strategy and architecture across key domains within Consumer Banking & Payments – with particular focus on Cards and Payment Gateways. This is a contract opportunity running until the end of December 2025, requiring a strategic thinker with deep technical knowledge and a passion for innovation in the financial services sector.
Key Responsibilities:
- Define and own the technology strategy, roadmaps, and target architectures for domains such as Cards and Payment Gateways.
- Collaborate with CIOs, Business Architects, and stakeholders to align business outcomes with technology direction.
- Evaluate industry trends and emerging technologies, presenting findings to senior stakeholders and building proof of concepts as needed.
- Lead the architecture governance process – from conceptual designs to technical solution validation.
- Drive compliance with enterprise policies, ensuring secure, scalable, and resilient system designs.
- Partner with engineering and operations teams to ensure architectural alignment with strategic objectives.
- Maintain oversight of technical debt and continuously refine architectural standards and patterns.
Required Skills and Experience:
- Expertise in the Cards & Payments industry, with knowledge of market trends, innovations, and challenges.
- Proven experience designing and delivering end-to-end enterprise solutions in a financial services environment.
- Real-world experience in defining and implementing enterprise-wide technical strategies.
- Deep technical knowledge, including:
- Cloud platforms (AWS and/or Azure)
- Microservices, messaging, APIs
- Data transformation/ETL
- Monitoring tools
- Infrastructure and Security
- Understanding of:
- Secure systems and software design
- High-availability/resilient system architectures
- Multi-data-centre deployments
- Strong communicator with the ability to translate complex technology into clear business language.
- Hands-on ability to support solution architects and development teams with critical issue resolution.
