Solution Architect

Job description

Job responsibilities

In this role, you are accountable for:

1. Collaboratively define as-is and to-be architectures to develop full technical solutions designs including preparation of technical artefacts, and blueprints; providing a high quality of cost estimation for submission into internal and external business cases and assessments.

2. Undertake and lead on investigative analysis within multidisciplinary teams, providing technical authority, making credible and practical technical decisions, communicating these with sensitivity and diplomacy to ensure the right technical direction is followed.

3.Prolonged preparation of papers for highly complex designs, working independently.

4. Lead and facilitate scoping and priority setting of large or highly complex changes, to enable the delivery to team to provides robust options appraisals and recommendations; harmonising across infrastructures and technologies wherever possible and selecting the most appropriate means to communicate information.

5. Proactively devising and managing initiatives to deliver capacity, performance and system availability improvements to meet or exceed targets.

6. Translating designs both logical and physical to support user friendly processes and systems, and communication of this across a variety of stakeholders including, business areas, projects or programme teams.

7. Sets technical standards, tools, techniques and methods and advises and influences others to adopt these to ensure consistency across the organisational approaches to designs.

8. Monitoring the development of new and emerging tools, technologies and products to assess potential value and identifying opportunities to enhance capabilities, products and services within the organisation.

9. Taking a major role to identify and share good practices, participating in relevant communities of practice to drive adoption of design standards, trends and patterns.

10. Working under general direction; planning your own work to achieve agreed objectives, seeking information when unclear, and escalating as appropriate, any issues or conflicting priorities which may impact deadlines.

11. Actively participating and contributing to quality assurance reviews of your work through a variety of approaches such as peer review, learning logs, and engaging in appropriate communities.

Staff

12. Planning, formulating and organising a broad range of highly complex plans, adjusting the strategic direction and adjusting those plans and then cascade to the team. Develop the architectural teams resource and training plans and set standards expected in workforce management. Identify and collate training needs and a blended approach to meeting these needs that supports the continual professional development of a highly skilled workforce.

13. Receive and act upon, and where possible resolve a range of escalations including staffing, disciplinary, resourcing business and technical, to secure satisfactory outcomes. Where unable to resolve, providing sufficient detail, escalate to the appropriate levels within the organisations, within agreed policies, procedures and processes to ensure appropriate resolution.

14. Undertake recruitment and selection in line with organisational processes and participate in the implementation and delivery of initiatives to secure suitable resources, increase skills levels and develop talent pools to meet the changing needs of the business landscape.

15. Seeking, providing and taking feedback to support and encourage teams and individuals to develop thinking and independently work through issues, to reach solutions-based outcomes. Taking full accountability for the approach and decision-making practices within area, including providing positive challenge to ideas and solutions.

16. Line management for the Architecture team, including agreement of leave, reporting of absence, assigning resources to specific projects, developing and co-ordinating the pipeline of work for the team.

17. Creation and implementation of development plans for the Architecture team, including the creation, monitoring and delivery of career pathways.

18. Deputise for the Enterprise Architect in specified times of absence, leave, reporting, or working on specific projects on behalf of the EA.

Financial Management

19. Maintain an awareness of financial and personal implications in the use of a range of resources.

20. Responsibility for contributing to budget management processes in accordance with NHSBSAs policies, standing orders, financial regulations and legislative requirements.

21. Budget manager for the architecture team in accordance with NHSBSAs policies, standing orders, financial regulations and legislative requirements, and the development of business plans including highly sensitive data.

22. Develop proposals for future investment including both technology refresh and project- based change; preparing necessary estimates, mandates and business cases within the technology department and providing estimates for such led by other departments.

Relationship Management

23. Identify opportunities to engage and foster relationships and partnership working within the business and with third parties, to identify and deliver value to the organisation.

Information Management

24. Maintain an awareness of agreed service levels, KPI's and standards within team, reviewing own performance and adapt own approach to maximise the delivery to support and meet agreed standards.

25. Responsibility for multiple systems and services across the organisation, the approval and implementation of processes to review, analyse, monitor and report on a number of areas including agreed service levels, KPI's and standards within team. Reviewing the performances of teams and projects in delivery of services against defined service levels, checking for trends that may trigger reduced performance and investigating where performance is below the agreed thresholds. Ensure that in managing performance a holistic approach is taken and that consideration is given to people, process, changes in demand and tools.

Delivery Management

26. Input into workforce planning, ensuring required operational commitments are fully met, business change is estimated, prioritised, and delivered, resourcing issues are identified, mitigated and managed to deliver business value.

27. Delivering continuous improvements to enhance own and business areas; co-ordinating and delivery of work across multiple strands such as continuous improvement, project related work, and lifecycle management, escalating issues at appropriate times.

28. Manage, and input into the development and implementation of approaches, strategies, standards, practices and policies across the team, ensuring and monitoring the timely delivery of business objectives within budget through the management of projects and programmes.

29. Architectural input into the creation of high quality functional and non-functional requirements to ensure the overall needs of the business are met as well as adherence to business objectives and alignment with strategic direction.

30. Participating in procurement processes for full solutions that meet business needs.

31. Leading, managing and engaging teams to deliver multiple strands of work such as continuous improvement, project related work, and operational tasks, both within the organisation and across external bodies to meet strategic goals and deliver high quality outputs for the organisation.

32. Leading on strategic procurement of hardware and software for various areas of the organisation, including selecting suppliers, accountability for delivery of quality outputs, meeting delivery timescales. Giving full consideration to cost, specification, maintenance and support to ensure the overall needs of the business are met from an ICT perspective, and that they are aligned with the business and ICT strategic directions

In addition to the above accountabilities, as post holder you are expected to:1. Undertake additional duties and responsibilities in line with the purpose of your role and as agreed by your line manager.2. Demonstrate NHSBSA values and core capabilities in all aspects of your work.3. Encourage an environment where your own and colleagues safety and well-being is promoted.4. Contribute to a culture which values diversity and inclusion.5. Follow NHSBSA policies, procedures, and protocols as they apply to your role.

Working relationships

Responsible to: Enterprise Architect

Key relationships and connections:1. Direct reports2. Team members3. Service delivery teams4. Business stakeholders5. Service Managers6. Suppliers7. Peer Networks

Person Specification

Personal Qualities, Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Business change, rationalisation and transformation and implementation of strategic approaches, plans, activities and solutions.
• Evaluation, interpretation, translation and communication of complex data/information from multiple sources and requirements to inform decision making.
• Design of cost effective and scalable enterprise solutions, from development through to implementation in a multi- supplier environment.
• Provide business assurance of supplier's designs and proposals.
• A range of skills and specialism across a diverse and detailed technical knowledge, covering web applications and services, cloud technology, information, infrastructure, cloud and managed service architectures.
• Planning and organisational skills across a broad range of activities to support the delivery of project planning and resource management.
• Communicating and negotiating with external bodies, suppliers and organisations to reach satisfactory outcomes for the NHSBSA, including assurance of external design proposals.

Desirable

• A variety of approaches to hosted solutions and data centres including co-Location (and integration into Service Management models)
• Working to GDS Principles and/or having participated in GDS assessments

Experience

Essential

• On-going professional development
• Leading and managing staff to deliver organisational goals and objectives
• Engaging and building relationships with a range of stakeholders to support delivery of business outcomes
• Creatively interpreting strategy and translate emerging trends and technologies to deliver innovative solutions which might impact or benefit the organisation including: Cloud technology, Mobile devices and apps, Collaborative working tools
• Devising comprehensive architecture for enterprise scale, high-volume digital services and initiatives that deliver capacity, performance and system availability improvements that ensure business targets are met or exceeded.
• Devising architectural standards and designs, iteratively to meet the needs of the organisational approaches and in line with GDS standards.
• Dealing with a number of strands of work in tandem, coupled with prolonged periods requiring high levels of concentration to provide high quality outputs, including the development of technical solution artifacts for inclusion in Business Cases, to be used both internally and externally to the NHSBSA.
• Providing full solutions design for complex systems and services, including developing and implementing solution and enterprise and application architecture in a multi supplier environment.
• Managing budgets to maintain effective cost analysis and projection.

Desirable

• Analysing digital / web services in a fast paced environment
• Open source and cloud technologies and their sourcing.
• Experience of migrating services across different Data Centre locations and legacy application consolidation
• Solution and service design and delivery within an Agile development environment.
• Conforming to financial standards within a commercial environment.
• Hosted solutions, services and data centres including co-Location (and integration into SIAM Service Management models)

Qualifications

Essential

• An IT related degree or equivalent

Desirable

• TOGAF certification or equivalent
• Experience of working in an agile environment
• ITIL or SIAM Certification
• Undertaken GDS Assessor training

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

Employer details

Employer name

NHS Business Services Authority

Address

Stella House or Ridgeway House

Goldcrest way, Newburn Riverside

Newcastle Upon Tyne

NE15 8NY

Employer's website

https://careers.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)