Senior Solutions Architect (D+AI)

Senior Solutions Architect (D&AI)

ScottishPower HQ, Glasgow

Salary starting from £69,200 + bonus, car allowance & other excellent benefits

Closing Date: 15th of September  

Help us create a better future, quicker

The Architecture team is responsible for providing technology services across all ScottishPower businesses in the UK. Solution architecture, technology evaluation and strategic group alignment are key services provided by this team. Technical leadership is fundamental to the future of IT within Scottish Power as our business processes rely increasingly more on the IT Architecture foundations.

As a Senior Solutions Architect you will be based in Glasgow but may include some travel within the Iberdrola Group. You will report directly to the UK Head of Architecture and will be responsible for a team of Solution Architects with a wide range of experience in various existing and evolving complex information technology domains. You will be instrumental in influencing key architectural decisions, and group alignment, through industry trend analysis, engagements in group wide architecture forums and business engagements. You will support the Head of Architecture on both the tactical, strategic direction and growth of the team by influencing both the people and technical direction of the technology roadmap.

What you'll be doing

• Define and govern the architecture of all Data & AI solutions across the enterprise.
• Ensure consistency, scalability, and security in data platform designs.
• Provide architectural oversight and guidance across multiple concurrent initiatives.
• Collaborate with business and technology stakeholders to align data architecture with strategic objectives.
• Translate business needs into high-level solution architectures and PoCs.
• Influence and shape the enterprise data strategy and roadmap.
• Lead and mentor cross-functional technical teams, fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration.
• Provide architectural guidance to cross functional technical teams – Data/AI engineers, Application consultants, solution architects.
• Promote Agile ways of working, contributing to sprint planning, backlog refinement, and iterative design.
• Design and guide the implementation of cloud-native data and AI solutions using AWS (e.g., Bedrock, Sagemaker, Glue, Redshift, Athena, EMR) and Azure (e.g., Azure OpenAI, Synapse Analytics, Data Factory, ADLS, Azure Purview).
• Architect solutions using Azure Synapse, including dedicated SQL pools for scalable data warehousing and analytics.
• Establish and promote CI/CD practices for both data and AI projects to ensure rapid, reliable, and repeatable deployments.
• Architect Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines and Agentic AI systems for prioritized AI usecases.
• Drive the design of AI guardrails to ensure responsible use of generative AI, including safety filters, prompt moderation, data privacy controls, and ethical usage policies.
• Design containerized data and AI workloads using Kubernetes and related orchestration tools.
• Deployment and maintenance of Informatica for metadata management, data cataloging, and stewardship frameworks.
• Collaborate with governance teams to embed governance into architectural designs.
• Act as a trusted advisor to business leaders, product owners, and delivery teams.
• Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to non-technical audiences
• Influence decision-making through thought leadership and domain expertise Contribution to the evolution of the Iberdrola Group Support models, including operational and technical best practices
• Deliver solutions in accordance with best practice and Group Global standards for Architecture and ensuring appropriate design standards for the introduction of technology across, Service Desk operation, Request Management, Change Management, Incident Management, Configuration Management, Problem management, Disaster Recovery, Site Management and Reporting.
• Support the yearly IT budget and planning process in Scottish Power for technology alignment to business requirements
• Lead comprehensive product / application evaluation and selection activities.
• Prepare presentations, documents, diagrams, models, and other artefacts as required to communicate analysis, recommendations, or designs.
• Understand technology trends and the practical application of existing, new and emerging technologies to identify and develop new and innovative capabilities, working with vendors as needed to bring them to life
• Define high-level migration plans to address the gaps between the current and future state, typically in sync with the IT budgeting or other capital planning processes.
• Promote awareness and ensure compliance with group procedures.
• Participate in the range of company-wide IT activities: definition and implementation of policies and procedures.

What you'll bring

As a Senior Solution Data & AI Architect, you will have a broad experience across various current modern day IT Architecture principles

• Significant experience of various system architectures, application technologies, data architectures, and infrastructures to support key IT initiatives.
• Extensive experience in data architecture and solution design on AWS or Azure.
• Proven track record of leading architecture for large-scale data and AI initiatives.
• Strong understanding of data engineering tools and services (e.g., Glue, Data Factory, Spark).
• Demonstrated experience leading technical teams and working in Agile environments.
• Hands-on experience with Informatica or similar data governance tools.
• Practical knowledge of generative AI, including RAG, AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, Agentic AI, and implementing AI guardrails.
• Experience designing and deploying containerized workloads using Kubernetes.
• Experience with Azure Synapse, including dedicated SQL pool architecture and optimization.
• Hands-on experience implementing CI/CD pipelines for data engineering and AI/ML workflows.
• Excellent communication, documentation, and stakeholder management skills
• Demonstrable experience in an ability to research, analyse and recommend new technologies and software applications to meet the company’s needs.
• Experience of creating and maintaining technical architecture documentation.
• Exceptional communication and influencing skills, both verbal and written, with the ability to express complex technical issues in an easily understood manner
• Up-to-date knowledge on IT security industry trends, attack techniques, mitigation techniques, security technologies and new and evolving threats to the organization
• Excellent interpersonal skills in areas such as teamwork, facilitation and negotiation
• Strong leadership skills
• Understanding of IT network and security architectures
• Understanding and knowledge of IT standards and controls
• Ability to understand the long-term ("big picture") and short-term perspectives of situations and how they relate to achieving targeted business outcomes
• Ability to estimate the financial impact of technology alternatives
• Ability to apply multiple technical solutions to enable future-state business capabilities that, in turn, drive targeted business outcomes
• Ability to quickly comprehend the functions and capabilities of existing, new and emerging technologies that enable and drive new business designs and models

Minimum Criteria

• Cloud certifications (e.g., AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Azure Solutions Architect Expert).
• Experience with modern data platforms (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks).
• Experience working in regulated or data-sensitive environments.
• Significant experience of Technology Lifecycle across modern domains such as cloud, containers, application development is advantageos.
• Record of academic achievement, including some form of recognised qualification from further education with a strong technical degree.
• Good oral and written communication skills.
• Numerate and able to deal with finances for the purposes of managing budgets or contracts with suppliers.
• Willingness to travel by aircraft internationally on business.
• Must be a proven team player to work, promote and consolidate efficient team working relationships.

What’s in it for you

As well as a competitive salary which is reviewed annually, you can also enjoy a number of other benefits. With our pension scheme, we’ll double match your contribution up to a company contribution of 10%. 

At ScottishPower, we believe it’s the little things we do in life that make a big difference. From helping you look after your family’s wellbeing, save for your future and take personal steps for climate action – our benefits are designed to help you do just that -  so that you have everything you need to take care of your world – today and tomorrow. That’s why our benefits include:

• 36 days annual leave

• Holiday purchase – perfect your work/life balance with extra annual leave

• Share Incentive Plan and Sharesave Scheme

• Payroll giving and charity matched funding

• Technology Vouchers – save more and spread the cost of your technology purposes

• Count us in – pledge to reduce carbon emissions and help fight climate change

• Electric Vehicle Schemes – to help you transition to green/clean driving

• Cycle to Work scheme and public transport season ticket loans

• Options to purchase dental insurance, private medical insurance, health cash plan and annual health assessments

• Life Assurance (4x salary)

• Access to ‘nudge’ financial wellbeing support

• Plus shopping, leisure, restaurant and gym discounts, and unique employee deals on travel insurance and more

Why ScottishPower

ScottishPower is part of the Iberdrola Group, one of the world’s largest integrated utility companies and a world leader in wind energy. With a commitment to generate all of our energy from renewable resources and a drive to create the energy infrastructure of the future, we’re at the forefront of the journey to Net Zero and investing over £6m every working day to make this happen. With diverse opportunities across our businesses and a commitment to invest in our own internal talent, ScottishPower can offer people real career opportunities that meet personal and professional goals, in a global organisation.

Inclusion, diversity, and a social purpose are at the heart of everything we do. Together with our values, they bring us together into a stronger, more sustainable business with direct links to the communities we serve. It takes all kinds of people to build a large-scale business like ours, so whatever your background, you’ll fit right in.

ScottishPower is committed to providing reasonable support or adjustments in our recruiting processes for candidates with disabilities, long term conditions, mental health conditions, or who are neurodivergent or require pregnancy-related support. If you need support, please reach out to careers@scottishpower.com.

Mobility

Please note that any applicant who is not a citizen of the country of the vacancy will be subject to compliance with the applicable immigration requirements to legally work in that country. If/when required, the Company will support the employee with the necessary Immigration requirements.

IMPORTANT 

Advert will close at 23:59 GMT the day before Job Posting End Date below