IAM Architect - 6 Month Contract - Inside IR35 - Hybrid in Leeds or Bradford

IAM Architect - 6 Month Contract - Inside IR35 - Hybrid in Leeds or Bradford

Contract Type: Initial 6 month contract (Inside IR35)
Rate: £575 per day
Location: Hybrid in Leeds or Bradford

Role Overview

An IAM Architect specialising in Identity Governance & Administration (IGA) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) is responsible for defining, designing, and governing enterprise-wide identity and access management architecture within a highly regulated UK BFSI environment, ensuring alignment with security strategy, business objectives, and regulatory requirements. The role combines strategic architecture with hands-on design oversight to deliver scalable and secure identity controls, including life cycle management, access governance, and privileged access capabilities, while supporting large-scale IAM transformation initiatives. Working closely with security, engineering, infrastructure, risk, and business stakeholders, the IAM Architect ensures seamless integration across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, drives adoption of best practices and standards, and strengthens organisational security posture through improved governance, compliance, and risk reduction.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define, own, and continuously evolve the target-state architecture for Identity Governance & Administration (IGA) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) across workforce, third-party, and privileged identities, ensuring alignment with enterprise security strategy, regulatory requirements, and business objectives within a UK BFSI environment.
• Lead the end-to-end design of scalable and secure identity controls covering identity life cycle management (joiner, mover, leaver), access requests and approvals, access certifications, role-based access control, segregation of duties, and privileged access capabilities such as vaulting, session management, and just-in-time access.
• Develop and maintain IAM architecture principles, standards, policies, reusable design patterns, and strategic roadmaps to support large-scale IGA and PAM transformation programmes and drive long-term security maturity across the organisation.
• Provide architectural leadership and governance for onboarding applications, platforms, and infrastructure into IAM services, ensuring consistent integration patterns across on-premises, cloud, hybrid, and SaaS environments.
• Conduct current-state IAM assessments to identify control gaps, risks, and inefficiencies, and deliver actionable recommendations and design assurance to improve security posture, compliance, and operational effectiveness across identity and privileged access domains.

What You Will Ideally Bring:

• Demonstrate deep domain expertise across Identity Governance & Administration (IGA) and Privileged Access Management (PAM), including strong hands-on architectural experience in designing and implementing RBAC models, access certifications, segregation of duties, privileged account discovery, password vaulting, session monitoring, and just-in-time access controls.
• Possess strong enterprise architecture capabilities with proven experience designing scalable, resilient, and secure IAM solutions across complex environments spanning on-premises infrastructure, cloud platforms, hybrid architectures, and SaaS applications.
• Exhibit solid technical knowledge of identity and security protocols and standards, including SAML, OAuth2, OpenID Connect, LDAP, SCIM, Kerberos, and REST/API-based integrations, enabling seamless interoperability across diverse systems and platforms.
• Apply in-depth understanding of regulatory, risk, audit, and compliance requirements within the UK Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector, ensuring IAM solutions meet stringent governance and security expectations.
• Demonstrate excellent stakeholder management, communication, and leadership skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively across security, engineering, infrastructure, audit, and business teams while influencing senior stakeholders and driving adoption of IAM strategies and solutions.