Job Title: Solution Architect
Contract Type: Permanent, Part Time, Full Time, Job Share option available
Salary Range: £70,000 - £80,000
Location: Any UK office
Closing Date for applications: Tuesday 7th January

Solution Architect: Ageas have an exciting opportunity to join our IT department as a Solution Architect. It’s a time of growth and modernisation at Ageas, and the Solution Architect will be crucial in ensuring the effective and efficient design of IT based solutions within Ageas UK. An excellent communicator, with great Stakeholder Management skills, the successful Solution Architect should have experience in an IT Architecture role at a large organisation or could be a Technical Lead looking for a new challenge– experience with one or more of the following is desirable:

• Digital transformation particularly around cloud adoption / migration (preferably Azure) and Windows 10, Microsoft 365 and Office 365 adoption and rollout, including an understanding of organisational change and it's impacts during transformation
• Delivering cloud centric application architectures including an understanding of cloud benefits and risks. DevOps set up and tooling (including automated testing framework and tools)
• Azure data platform and relevant tooling (such as Azure Databricks, Azure Dev Ops, Snowflake and Power BI)

Main Responsibilities as Solution Architect:

• To Provide the required architecture services to support the delivery of the solution by the project/programme/product team.  Services provided include Consultancy (Solution Options, Advice & Guidance), Solution Architecture (Strawman, Woodman and Ironman levels of details depending on what is required), Design Authority (supporting the delivery and removing architectural blockers)
• Contribute to the enterprise architecture work required to support the organisation
• To be an active member of each of the Architecture Design Authority Forums, helping to ensure all decisions made are fully auditable and contribute to peer reviews
• To contribute to the evolution of the Architecture Practice to ensure fitness for the future, share knowledge and skills, act as an ambassador for Ageas through attendance at external events, and personal development commitment.

Skills and experience you need as Solution Architect:

• Exceptional written and oral communication skills, which are essential for interacting with key stakeholders at all levels across the business.
• Experience working in Financial Services, specifically Insurance, would be beneficial.
• Ability to keep up to date with technology trends and innovations to enable Ageas to leverage any opportunities.
• Possesses a distinctive blend of business acumen and IT knowledge.
• An up-to-date knowledge of architectural standards e.g. TOGAF.
  

Here are some of the benefits you can enjoy within the Solution Architect role based in any UK office: 

At Ageas we offer a wide range of benefits to support you and your family inside and outside of work, which helped us achieve, Top Employer status in the UK.

Flexible Working - Smart Working @ Ageas gives employees flexibility around location (as long as it’s within the UK) and, for many of our roles, flexibility within the working day to manage other commitments, such as school drop offs etc. We also offer all our vacancies part-time/job-shares . We also offer a minimum of 35 days holiday (inc. bank holidays) and you can buy and sell days.

Supporting your Health – Dental Insurance Health Cash Plan, Health Screening, Will Writing, Voluntary Critical Illness, Mental Health First Aiders, Well Being Activities – Yoga, Mindfulness.

Supporting your Wealth – Annual Bonus Schemes, Annual Salary Reviews, Competitive Pension, Employee Savings, Employee Loans.

Supporting you at Work - Well-being activities, yoga, mindfulness sessions, Sports and Social Club events and more.

Supporting you and your Family – Maternity/pregnant parent/primary adopter entitlement of 16 weeks’ at full pay and paternity/non-pregnant parent/co-adopter at 8 weeks’ full pay.

Benefits for Them – Partner Life Assurance and Critical Illness cover

Getting Around – Car Salary Exchange, Cycle Scheme, Vehicle Breakdown Cover

Get some Tech – Deals on various gadgets including Wearables, Tablets and Laptops.

Supporting you back to work - Return to work programme after maternity leave

About Ageas:
We’re one of the largest car and home insurers in the UK. Our people help Ageas to be a thriving, creative and innovative place to work, which is echoed in the service we provide to over four million customers.

As an inclusive employer, we encourage anyone to apply. We’re a signatory of the Race at Work Charter and Women in Finance Charter, member of iCAN and GAIN. As a Disability Confident Leader, we are committed to ensuring our recruitment processes are fully inclusive. That means if you are applying for a job with us, you will have fair access to support and adjustments throughout your recruitment experience.  If the list does not cover the support you need, please contact our Recruitment Team to discuss how they can help. We also guarantee an interview for applicants with a disability who meet the minimum criteria for the role. For more information please see Ageas Everyone.

We have a zero-tolerance approach towards any form of harassment during the recruitment process, ensuring that everyone is treated with respect and professionalism.