Service Architect & Designer

We’re looking for a Service Architect to join our Service Architect, Design and Transition team in Enterprise Technology. If you’re looking for a new challenge with an organisation committed to putting customers first, aiming high and working together, you’ll thrive here.

The core part of the role is to produce end-to-end service designs for strategic technology initiatives, integrating architecture, security, operations, supplier, resilience, and support requirements into a single consumable service model.

Fixed term contract for 18 months

Birmingham, Telford and Edinburgh. Hybrid working

All roles are open to part-time, job-share and other types of flexibility. We will discuss what is important to you and balancing this with business requirements during the recruitment process. You can read more about flexible working here.

09/09/2026

Between £65, plus an indicative bonus range of of 16-32% private medical cover, 38 days annual leave, excellent pension, 12x salary life assurance, career breaks, income protection, 3x volunteering days and much more.

We’re Standard Life, a retirement specialist focused entirely on retirement savings and income. We champion the belief that everyone’s journey to and through retirement can be better, and for more than 200 years, we’ve been helping our customers plan and prepare for their financial futures.

Life today is increasingly complicated, uncertain and unpredictable. People move through different careers, face unexpected moments and navigate important choices. We offer our colleagues flexibility, trust and benefits that work for whatever life brings. In return we expect curiosity, connection, accountability and high standards. We make room for what matters - so you can bring your best, every day.

The Service Architect and Designer is responsible for the strategic planning, design, and governance of IT services to ensure they meet business needs and are aligned with organizational objectives. This role bridges business requirements and technical implementation, ensuring that services are well-architected, scalable, and efficient throughout their lifecycle.

• Design and document IT services, including infrastructure, application, and support components, ensuring they meet functional and non-functional requirements.
• Ensure services are designed for scalability, resilience, and operational excellence.
• Collaborate with business stakeholders to gather requirements and translate them into service designs.
• Develop detailed service design packages, including SLAs, OLAs, capacity planning, security requirements, and performance metrics.
• Establish and maintain service architecture and design standards, ensuring alignment with industry best practices such as ITIL, COBIT, and TOGAF.
• Serve as a liaison between technical teams and business leaders, ensuring clear communication of service architecture and design decisions.
• Continuously review and optimise service designs to improve cost-efficiency, user experience, and reliability.
• Identify potential risks associated with service designs and propose mitigation strategies.

• Strong knowledge of ITIL service design and architecture frameworks (e.g., TOGAF, Zachman)
• Demonstrable experience in designing and delivering enterprise‑grade IT services.
• Proficiency in identifying and addressing risks and inefficiencies in service designs.
• Proven ability to align service designs with organisational goals and long‑term IT strategies
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and modern IT environments (e.g., microservices, containerization).
• Highly organised with the ability to multitask and…