Head of Architecture & Security

• Permanent position
• London (Victoria) - 5 days per week onsite
• p to £120,000

Head of Architecture and Security

London (Victoria) Up to £120,000 Full-time, office-based

We are looking for a technically credible, delivery-focused Head of Architecture and Security to join a Group ICT function operating across multiple European businesses. This is a senior leadership role combining genuine enterprise architecture authority with practical security ownership and hands-on delivery oversight - not a theoretical or governance-only position.
Reporting to the Group IT Director and line managing the Technical Engineering Manager, you will set architecture direction across a hybrid estate, own application integration architecture across the Group, drive M365 and End User Computing strategy, and make proportionate security decisions that enable the business rather than block it.
The organisation values pace, pragmatism, and outcomes. This is a role for someone who turns ambiguous problems into clear options and drives decisions through to delivered results.

What you'll do

• Establish and maintain clear architecture views across the Group's hybrid environment - on-premise infrastructure, Azure cloud, Microsoft 365, identity, and security - that are genuinely useful to both engineers and senior business stakeholders.
• Own the Group's application integration architecture: set integration standards, understand how systems across the businesses connect and exchange data, and challenge approaches that are inconsistent, fragile, or undocumented.
• Convert ambiguous business and technical problems into workable solution designs with clear options, trade-offs, and recommendations.
• Set strategic direction for Microsoft 365 and End User Computing, ensuring the platform's capabilities are understood and exploited before new technology is proposed.
• Own security strategy and risk-based decision-making for the ICT function, embedding security pragmatically across architecture, delivery, and operations.
• Drive delivery pace by simplifying decision-making, removing blockers, and creating clear, executable plans that teams can act upon.
• Line manage the Technical Engineering Manager, setting expectations, reviewing performance, and developing their leadership capability.
• Represent the ICT function confidently with senior business stakeholders, vendors, and in technical governance discussions.

What we're looking for

• Demonstrable enterprise architecture capability: experience producing architecture views, setting coherent direction across a hybrid estate, and making pragmatic design choices about cloud migration and on-premise retention. Formal certification such as TOGAF is valued but not required.
• Application integration architecture experience: evidence of setting integration standards, understanding APIs and data exchange patterns, and challenging development teams on how systems connect.
• Strong strategic depth across Microsoft 365 and identity: tenant-level governance, Conditional Access, device posture, identity governance, and data protection.
• Security strategy and risk-based decision-making: a proven ability to own proportionate security decisions across infrastructure, cloud, identity, and operations in a commercially aware way.
• Broad infrastructure credibility: sufficient understanding of on-premise infrastructure - Servers, storage, networking, virtualisation, and resilience - to challenge engineering proposals and set direction.
• Azure cloud architecture understanding, including hybrid integration, governance, and migration sequencing.
• Leadership through influence, not hands-on execution: clear evidence of setting direction, coaching teams, and delivering results through others.
• Experience managing senior technical staff, setting expectations, and holding direct reports accountable for delivery and team outcomes.
• Clear, effective communication: the ability to explain complex topics simply and produce artefacts - diagrams, design documents, decision records - that people actually use.
• A delivery-focused mindset: someone who turns problems into decisions and outcomes quickly, drives momentum, and holds teams to timelines.
• Senior presence and interpersonal skills: confident operating at a senior level, professional and sociable, comfortable engaging across technical and business functions.

Desirable

• Interest in and awareness of practical AI and automation adoption within ICT functions.
• Experience in regulated financial services environments.
• Experience operating across multiple European jurisdictions.

The role in brief Reports to: Group IT Director
Direct reports: Technical Engineering Manager
Location: Victoria, London - office-based, five days per week
Salary: Up to £120,000
Contract: Full-time, permanent

If you are a senior architecture and security leader who combines technical credibility with clear communication and a genuine drive for delivery, we would be pleased to hear from you.

Services offered by Computappoint Limited are those of an Employment Business and/or Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.

Computappoint do not use AI to filter or assess candidates, we use experienced and dedicated recruiters, who want to match the best people to roles.