Job Description
Salary: £70,000 - £85,000
Leonardo UK operates a grade-based salary framework with broad bands. The salary range shown reflects the approved grade band for this role, or a narrower hiring range published within that band, and is benchmarked against the external market. Exceptions above the standard range are managed through governance controls to protect internal equity.
Your impact
Join Leonardo UK as Domain Architect – Digital Backbone and Digital Employee Experience and take ownership of the target architecture, long-term roadmap and investment story for the platforms every person, product and programme in the business depends on.
Two connected domains sit behind everything we do. The Digital Backbone covers the compute, storage, network, datacentre, cloud and platform engineering estate that our business-critical services run on. Digital Employee Experience covers the workplace, collaboration, identity and device estate our people use every day. Both domains are being modernised at pace, and both require clear architectural direction, credible investment planning and disciplined assurance.
This is a Strategy-to-Portfolio architecture role. It is not primarily a project delivery post: the successful candidate will set the direction that delivery teams work towards, assure that what is built reflects what was designed, agreed and funded, and help shape the investment choices that determine Leonardo UK’s future technology foundation.
You will work closely with the Head of Enterprise Architecture UK, the Digital Solutions CTO UK and CTO Italy, fellow Enterprise and Domain Architects, Security Architects, Solution Architects, service owners and technology governance bodies, including the Global Architecture Board. You will be recognised as an authority on the current estate, its direction of travel and the architectural decisions required to make it secure, resilient, affordable and scalable.
We believe high-impact architecture is driven by outcomes. This role operates on a flexible hybrid working model, with purposeful travel to site for design workshops, architecture boards and key stakeholder sessions.
This role reports to the Head of Enterprise Architecture UK.
In This Role You Will
Own the target state for both domains, convert it into a funded and sequenced multi-year roadmap, assure delivery against it, and raise the standard of architecture practice across the community that builds it.
Domain architecture and target state
- Define and maintain the target architecture across Digital Workplace, Network and Hosting, Cloud and Hybrid, and Platform Engineering, including capability-level views, principles, standards and reference patterns.
- Maintain an accurate baseline of the current estate, working with domain and service owners so landscape models reflect reality.
- Align to Cybersecurity and Monitoring and Observability capability models owned elsewhere in the function, ensuring designs integrate with and are assured against them.
- Contribute domain content to cross-cutting standards and represent the domains at architecture governance forums.
Demand, risk and emerging technology
- Bring together the signals that shape the plan: risk and obsolescence, programme and bid demand, growth and acquisition activity, supplier and market direction, and the security threat picture.
- Translate those signals into a concise, defensible set of domain drivers that underpin the roadmap and investment plan.
- Assess emerging technology on evidence rather than hype, using proportionate proof-of-value activity and clear adopt, trial, watch or avoid recommendations.
- Maintain awareness of relevant vendor, open-source and industry direction, incorporating it into domain standards and roadmaps where it earns its place.
Roadmaps and long-term planning
- Own and maintain a rolling three-year domain roadmap with a five-year technology outlook, refreshed on a predictable cycle.
- Sequence change around the constraints that genuinely matter: hardware and operating system lifecycle, licence and contract renewals, datacentre and cloud commitments, and the rate of change the business can absorb.
- Model options and trade-offs — buy or build, cloud or on-premises, refresh or replace — making cost, risk and capability impact explicit.
- Plan headroom for growth so capacity, licensing and footprint decisions do not become tomorrow’s constraint.
- Maintain a single published view of obsolescence and technical debt, with the cost of inaction quantified.
Investment planning
- Convert roadmap increments into investment items with indicative cost, benefit, dependency and delivery‑confidence ranges.
- Provide the architecture content for business cases, stage gates and portfolio submissions.
- Work with Finance, Portfolio and Service Owners on affordability, phasing and the run‑cost consequences of design choices.
- Advise on prioritisation where demand exceeds available funding, and trace approved investment back to the roadmap, so plan and architecture do not drift apart.
Architecture assurance and governance
- Act as a standing member of the design authority for both domains, reviewing and approving high-level designs, patterns and deviations.
- Provide the architecture opinion at portfolio and delivery gates, confirming alignment to target state, secure‑by‑design principles, supportability and affordability.
- Own the reference patterns, standards and guardrails that architects reuse, keeping them current and making the compliant path the easy path.
- Operate a transparent dispensation process where exceptions are time‑bound, owned, costed and logged as debt rather than quietly absorbed.
Community leadership and mentoring
- Act as architectural mentor and technical sounding board to Solution and Technical Architects across the delivery portfolio, providing matrix support rather than line management.
- Pair on hard problems early, including option analysis, non‑functional requirements, integration and migration approach.
- Review designs constructively and early enough to change the outcome, rather than acting as a late‑stage veto.
- Run a domain architecture community of practice, including pattern reviews, worked examples, lessons learned and a shared design library.
- Build capability deliberately through development plans, certification pathways and stretch work, and hold supplier architects to the same standard.
What You’ll Bring
- Domain depth: Current, hands‑on grounding in at least two of hosting and datacentre, networking, public cloud, platform engineering and digital workplace.
- Road mapping: Proven ownership of a multi‑year technology roadmap that secured funding and was subsequently delivered against.
- Investment planning: Experience producing the architecture content behind business cases, with a working understanding of cost, run‑cost and affordability as architectural properties.
- Architecture method: Fluency in architecture methods and artefacts — such as TOGAF, ArchiMate or equivalent — applied pragmatically rather than ceremonially.
- Evidence and judgement: A habit of working from risk registers, demand pipelines, lifecycle data and growth forecasts, with sound judgement on which emerging technologies represent a genuine shift.
- Assurance and governance: A track record of design authority or equivalent assurance work that enables pace rather than creating bottlenecks.
- Influence and coaching: Strong peer‑leadership skills, credible with engineers and directors, and able to move between a design review and an investment board in the same day.
- Experience: Substantial experience in an architecture function, ideally including time in highly regulated or defence and aerospace industries.
Desirable experience includes:
Hybrid and multi‑cloud estates such as Azure and AWS alongside a substantial on‑premises footprint; HPC and scientific computing; NIST CSF and Secure by Design; FinOps and run‑cost modelling; large‑scale workplace transformation across Microsoft 365, Windows, device lifecycle, identity and access; and certification such as TOGAF, a cloud architect track or CISSP.
This is not an exhaustive list, and we are keen to hear from you even if you do not have experience across every area. The most important things are good judgement, curiosity, a collaborative mindset and a willingness to learn.
Security Clearance
This role is subject to pre‑employment screening in line with the UK Government’s Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). An additional range of Personnel Security Controls referred to as National Security Vetting (NSV) may apply, this could include meeting the eligibility requirements for The Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV). For more information and guidance please visit:
Why join us
At Leonardo, our people are at the heart of everything we do. We offer a comprehensive, company‑funded benefits package that supports your wellbeing, career development, and work–life balance. Whether you're looking to grow professionally, care for your health, or plan for the future, we’re here to help you thrive.
- Time to Recharge: Enjoy generous leave with the opportunity to accrue up to 12 additional flexi‑days each year.
- Secure your Future: Benefit from our award‑winning pension scheme with up to 15% employer contribution.
- Your Wellbeing Matters: Free access to mental health support, financial advice, and employee‑led networks championing inclusion and diversity (Enable, Pride, Equalise, Armed Forces, Carers, Wellbeing and Ethnicity).
- Rewarding Performance: All employees at management level and below are eligible for our bonus scheme.
- Never Stop Learning: Free access to 4,000+ online courses via Coursera and LinkedIn Learning.
- Refer a friend: Receive a financial reward through our referral programme.
- Tailored Perks: Spend up to £500 annually on flexible benefits including private healthcare, dental, family cover, tech & lifestyle discounts, gym memberships and more.
- Flexible working: Flexible hours with hybrid working options. For part time opportunities, please talk to us about what might be possible for this role.
For a full list of our company benefits please visit our website.
Leonardo UK operates a grade-based salary framework with broad bands. The salary range shown reflects the approved grade band for this role, or a narrower hiring range published within that band, and is benchmarked against the external market. Exceptions above the standard range are managed through governance controls to protect internal equity.
Leonardo is a global leader in Aerospace, Defence, and Security. Headquartered in Italy, we employ over 53,000 people worldwide including 8,500 across 9 sites in the UK. Our employees are not just part of a team—they are key contributors to shaping innovation, advancing technology, and enhancing global safety.
At Leonardo we are committed to building an inclusive, accessible, and welcoming workplace. We believe that a diverse workforce sparks creativity, drives innovation, and leads to better outcomes for our people and our customers. If you have any accessibility requirements to support you during the recruitment process, just let us know.
Primary Location
GB - Luton - Cap. Green 300
Additional Locations
GB - Basildon, GB - Bristol - Coldharbour Lane, GB - Edinburgh, GB - Newcastle, GB - Southampton
Contract Type
Permanent
Hybrid Working
Hybrid
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