Solution Architect in City of London, London

Solution Architect (Insurance)
6 Months
London & Brighton (2-3 days per month)
£750-880 per day (Inside IR35)

My client, a market leading provider of pensions and insurance products and services are looking for a Senior Solution Architect with who has worked in this sector and who has experience in a range of consulting roles in fast moving customer engagements.

Key responsibilities and accountabilities
The candidate will principally be responsible for defining solution architecture for end-to-end pensions solutions, potentially across a range of different business portfolios within a specific market area.
You must have a background and deep familiarity with the Pensions industry sector (DB pensions and administration) and preferably have specific experience in the Pension Risk Transfer domain
You should be confident operating in a consulting-led environment, communicating with senior business stakeholders and positioning solutions in a commercially aware manner. You must be adept at building relationships across multiple teams.
You should be comfortable defining and delivering solution architecture deliverables in large complex projects working closely with both business and technology delivery teams.

Technical knowledge
From your core experience as a Solution Architect you should have experience with a range of different solution types and technologies including-
Policy Administration Systems
CRM / Customer Service (ideally dynamics)
Cloud (SaaS, PaaS and IaaS)
Integration and microservices
Enterprise Software
Process Automation
Enterprise Architecture Tooling

On the job details-
Developing solution architecture against functional and non-functional business requirements in line with industry standards and best practices
Documenting solution designs, driving through key design decisions, and solution delivery approaches and successfully guiding these through architecture assurance and approval gates
Researching and elaborating technology solution options and preparing comparative analysis including costs, risks and coverage and outlining strategies including proof of concepts
Working with delivery teams to ensure compliance of developed solutions to underlying solution architecture
Assessing and selecting commercial off-the-shelf solutions in partnership with IT, Procurement, business leaders and existing or potential providers of IT services.
Conducting due diligence on potential providers of solutions and individual solution components or services.
Providing industry insight to explore the selection and potential application of emerging and disruptive technologies to entrenched business problems

Critical skills and experience
Strong experience in designing and proposing solutions for a given business requirement adhering to architectural principles.
Strongexperience in Insurance/Pensions industry.
TOGAF certified (or equivalent practitioner level certification in Solution or Enterprise Architecture)
Used appropriate tools, including logical models of components and interfaces, to contribute to the development of systems architectures in specific business or functional areas.
Produced detailed component specifications and translated these into detailed designs for implementation using selected products.
Analytical thinking & problem solving
Flexibility, energy and ability to work well with others in a virtual, geographically dispersed team environment
Excellent verbal and written communication skills - working with stakeholders and product owners
Excellent stakeholder management skills