Chief Architect - NGET

About us

At National Grid, we keep people connected and society moving. As the energy transition accelerates, our role has never been more important. We are building the networks, digital capabilities, and technology foundations needed to deliver a cleaner, more secure, and more resilient energy future.

This is an opportunity to play a pivotal leadership role in one of the UK’s most significant infrastructure transformations. National Grid Electricity Transmission is at the heart of delivering the grid of tomorrow, supported by a record level of capital investment of more than £30 billion for the 2026‑2031 regulatory period.

As Chief Architect for National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET), you will be accountable for the quality, integrity, and strategic alignment of architecture decisions across these United Kingdom business units. You will provide senior architecture leadership across a complex and high‑impact portfolio, ensuring that business strategy, technology strategy, investment priorities, and delivery plans are connected through clear architectural direction.

In service of achieving targeted strategic business outcomes, you will lead the development of future‑state blueprints and roadmaps, establish architecture standards and governance, and guide solution delivery across major transformation initiatives. Working closely with senior business, digital, technology, product, and delivery leaders, you will ensure that architecture enables business outcomes, supports regulatory commitments, and creates long‑term enterprise value.

The role reports directly to the Vice President of Enterprise Architecture and Technology Strategy, with a dotted‑line relationship to the Chief Information and Digital Officer for National Grid Electricity Transmission. Product Line and Solution Architects within NGET will have a dotted‑line relationship into this role, and the position includes direct management responsibility for a small team of Business Unit Architects.

• Define and champion the architecture vision, target‑state blueprint, and strategic technology roadmap for the business unit, ensuring alignment with enterprise strategy and business objectives.
• Act as the key architecture decision‑maker and design authority, providing leadership and assurance for critical technology and architectural decisions across National Grid Electricity Transmission.
• Partner with senior business and technology stakeholders to bridge the gap between strategy and execution, ensuring technology enables and accelerates business outcomes.
• Lead architectural direction across major investment initiatives and transformation programmes, ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, resilient, sustainable, and cost‑effective.
• Establish and continuously evolve architecture governance, standards, principles, patterns, and assurance processes that drive consistency, quality, and innovation.
• Oversee solution architecture practices, ensuring the right tools, frameworks, and governance are in place to deliver high‑quality, strategically aligned solutions.
• Coach and guide Product Line and Solution Architects, fostering collaboration and ensuring architectural decisions are reusable, future‑focused, and aligned to enterprise goals.
• Partner with stakeholders across the organisation to understand business challenges, translate requirements into architectural strategies, and enable successful delivery.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, market trends, and industry innovations, identifying opportunities to enhance capabilities, improve performance, reduce risk, and unlock new business value.
• Champion the adoption of modern technology solutions‑including AI, data, platforms, applications, and infrastructure‑to improve efficiency, interoperability, agility, and user experience.
• Ensure technology investments support National Grid's long‑term ambitions while reducing complexity, minimising technical debt, and promoting sustainable architectural practices.
• Lead architecture reviews and design assurance activities, balancing risk, value, and delivery needs while ensuring adherence to established standards and principles.
• Build and…