Solution Architect

Solution Architect

6 Months Contract

Inside IR35

Manchester Based

Must have worked in a higher educational envrioment

The Role

We are seeking a skilled Solution Architect to join the architecture team within the ITS Strategy & Architecture function of a leading higher education institution. This team is responsible for architectural design and governance, translating IT strategy into actionable design principles, standards, and guidance. The team plays a critical role in shaping and articulating the institution's evolving IT needs, with expertise spanning information architecture, solution architecture, business analysis, and business architecture.

This position will initially be aligned with the Evolve Programme, a strategic initiative to provide stable, reliable, and future-ready IT services that support the institution's academic and operational ambitions. The successful candidate will focus on the "Colleague and Student Compute" and "Environments" workstreams.

Your responsibilities will include stakeholder engagement, product fit/gap analysis, creation of High-Level Design documentation, and providing technical leadership. Ensuring our technology services are embedded effectively through high-quality service design will be key to the success of this role.

Colleague and Student Compute:

• Deliver an enhanced user experience for students in computing clusters and a more robust service for staff.

• Expand services that support flexible and remote access to teaching and learning software.

• Produce documented designs and processes for both new and existing computing services.

• Strengthen collaboration between IT Services and the teaching and learning community.

Environments:

• Provide on-demand, high availability, reusable, and stable environments using industry-standard tools.

• Develop automated environment builds for core systems.

• Enhance release management and implement improved data obfuscation processes.

• Define and maintain robust guidelines, standards, and governance practices.

• Implement a Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution to safeguard privileged accounts, mitigate risks, and align with industry best practices.