Solutions Architect

Job Title: Solutions Architect
Starting Salary: £48,226 opportunity to progress to £53,460 per annum
Hours: 37
Location: Stevenage/Hybrid
Contract Type: Permanent
Directorate: Resources

About the team

The Technical Architects team plays a key role in supporting the council’s services, staff, residents and partners by ensuring that technology solutions are secure, reliable and aligned to business needs. The team works across a broad range of programmes and services to help deliver practical, well designed digital solutions that improve outcomes and provide value for money.

About the Role

As a Solutions Architect, you will be responsible for translating business and service requirements into practical, scalable and supportable technical designs. You will work with a wide range of stakeholders including infrastructure, cloud, security, applications, service management, suppliers and business teams to ensure solutions are fit for purpose and deliver measurable outcomes.

You will provide architecture leadership across hybrid environments, supporting the council’s ongoing modernisation agenda and ensuring that both legacy and strategic platforms are considered in a joined-up way.

About you

Essential:

• Proven experience in a Solutions Architect, Technical Architect or similar architecture role within a complex enterprise environment.
• Strong hands-on and design-level knowledge of:
• Microsoft Azure
• virtualisation platforms including Hyper-V and Nutanix
• Microsoft 365
• SAP environments and enterprise application integration
• Experience designing solutions across hybrid, cloud, and on-premises environments.
• Strong understanding of:
• infrastructure architecture
• cloud services
• networking
• identity and access management
• resilience and disaster recovery
• security architecture principles
• strong understanding of licensing
• monitoring and operational support requirements
• Experience producing architecture documentation and presenting designs to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Familiarity with DevOps practices and automation tools e.g. Terraform, Bicep, GitHub & PowerShell
• Ability to align technical solutions with business needs, service outcomes and financial considerations.
• Experience working with third-party suppliers and internal delivery teams in a structured delivery environment.
• Strong stakeholder engagement, communication and influencing skills.
• Analytical, organised and able to manage competing priorities in a complex environment.

Desirable:

• Experience working within Local Government or the wider public sector.
• Experience of architecture governance, design authority or technical review boards.
• Knowledge of public sector compliance, data protection, security and accessibility considerations.
• Strong Experience of solution design involving:
• Microsoft Entra ID / identity services
• Zero-trust design principles
• Microsoft 365 security and compliance capabilities
• backup and recovery platforms
• ITSM / service management tooling
• enterprise integration and API-led design
• Familiarity with architecture frameworks or methods such as TOGAF, Azure Well-Architected Framework or similar.
• Understanding of ITIL and service transition principles.

This is an opportunity to play a key role in shaping architecture across a major local authority environment, helping to modernise services that directly support residents, staff and partners. You will work across a broad and interesting technology landscape, influencing strategic decisions and delivering tangible public value through secure, resilient and integrated solutions.

We welcome applications from candidates who currently reside in the UK with established proof of right to work documentation. We are not able to offer sponsorship at this time for this role.

This job role is Level 12. Please locate the job profile here:

Job profiles: Technical services

To hear more about this opportunity please contact Steve.Orah@hertfordshire.gov.uk for an informal discussion about the role.

Interview Date: to be confirmed

Benefits of working for us

How to apply

As part of your application, please upload your most recent CV. Ensure your CV is up to date with your employment history (including any employment gaps), and including any training/qualifications. We encourage you to include examples of where you have demonstrated the requirements/criteria in the advert / job profile to allow the panel to fully recognise your skills and abilities. You will have the opportunity to include a short covering paragraph within your application to give us a little more information about your skills, knowledge, and experiences.

Additional information

We are changing
Hertfordshire County Councilis undergoing Local Government Reorganisation (LGR). If you are employed by Hertfordshire County on 1 April 2028, it is expected that most roles will transfer to the newly-created unitary councils on existing terms and conditions under TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings – Protection of Employment) principles.

LGR is one of the biggest changes we will face in a generation. It will reshape how we work and how services are organised and gives us a real opportunity to build something better. To find out more, visit https://www.hertfordshire-lgr.co.uk/

Disability Confident
We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and guarantee an interview to anyone disclosing a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the post.

English Fluency
The ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for the post (for those whose language is a signed language the provision of a sign language interpreter who speaks English to the necessary standard of fluency will be required). Further information about the legal requirement can be found here.