IT Head of Architecture and Engineering

IT Head of Architecture and Engineering

Join to apply for the IT Head of Architecture and Engineering role at FGH (Freemans Grattan Holdings)

FGH Business Centre 66-70 Vicar Ln, Bradford BD1 5AJ

Hybrid flexibility: 2 full office days per week across Tues/Weds/Thurs

This is a senior leadership and management role, reporting directly into our Director of IT.

• Working alongside the Director of IT, the Head of Architecture will lead and develop the architecture team for FGH, covering transformation and end state roadmaps, application maturity assessment, integration, and data strategies.
• The role will have a wide enterprise responsibility for the alignment of the infrastructure and platform architecture with the overall enterprise plan.
• Manage and develop architecture principles, tools, and frameworks to ensure FGH technology is managed and nurtured as a series of value-creating ecosystems.
• Provide the big picture view of the technology landscape, guiding solutions and domain architecture.
• Agree effective ways of working with the key business stakeholders and teams to ensure that the change programmes and projects can be agile and autonomous within the wider technology strategy.
• Manage and govern light touch architectural governance to ensure all solutions align with the global direction of travel and any near-term exceptions have a route back to the core roadmap.
• Determine the core artefacts, ensuring usability and pragmatism are critical guiding principles.
• Issue standards and policies where required to ensure change teams have clarity on strategic approach.
• Lead the architecture team analysis of the current IT environment to detect critical deficiencies and recommend solutions for improvement.
• Lead the architecture team analysis of technology industry and market trends to determine their potential impact on the enterprise architecture.
• Promote the architecture process, outcomes, and results to the organisation, including the enterprise's IT and business leaders.
• Lead the development and management of an implementation plan for the enterprise architecture based on business requirements and IT strategies.
• Collaborate with the risk, compliance, audit, and security teams to ensure the architecture accommodates the regulatory compliance and cyber security requirements and commitments of the organisation.
• Oversee the documentation of all architecture design and analysis work.
• Lead the development and execution of a communication and education plan for the architecture.
• Assess and communicate the value of the architecture and promote and lead the architecture function.
• Engage the FGH leadership team on technology enabled change.
• Influencing partners to ensure FGH technology landscape enables competitive advantage leveraging new technology whilst pushing the boundaries on efficiency and automation.

• Deep experience of Architecture in a consumer facing environment, spanning both digital and physical technology.
• Great breadth and some depth in SaaS, applications/software; good experience of integration, data, and infrastructure.
• Great experience of both agile and more traditional change delivery. Proven experience in making the architecture role work well in an agile environment.
• Brilliant communication skills, able to explain complex technology concepts clearly to business stakeholders, and to engage in depth with all FGH and IT Partner technologists.
• Exceptional interpersonal skills, including teamwork, facilitation, and negotiation.
• Willing to take accountability for things, even without line management control of the resources.
• Demonstrable commitment to developing their own professional skillset, keeping at the cutting edge technically and professionally.
• Experience in working with third parties to get great service provision and value for money on projects.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, systems analysis or a related field of study, or equivalent experience.
• Strong leadership skills.
• Excellent analytical and technical skills.

For over 100 years, Freemans has been at the forefront of home shopping, delivering quality products and…