Technical Governance Architect- 6 months - Inside IR35 - Hybrid in London

Role Overview

A minimum 6-month hybrid contract role based in London (2-3 days on-site), for an experienced Technology Governance Architect within a large, complex financial services environment. The position is responsible for defining and operationalising the governance assets, standards, and controls that enable consistent technology decision-making across the enterprise. The role is pivotal in transitioning the organisation from manual, opinion-based governance towards standardised, data-driven, and increasingly automated governance processes.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain enterprise technology standards, architecture principles, design guardrails, and governance guidance, ensuring alignment to strategic direction, regulatory obligations, and industry best practice.
• Create and maintain reusable architecture assets including patterns, reference architectures, design templates, and implementation guidance for use across technology domains.
• Support architecture governance forums by providing clear governance requirements, decision frameworks, and repeatable assessment criteria to improve consistency and reduce subjective reviews.
• Support the implementation and adoption of LeanIX as the enterprise architecture repository, including technology standards, life cycle information, and governance metadata.
• Drive governance industrialisation through pattern-based governance, policy-as-code, automated control validation, and AI-enabled governance capabilities.

Top 5 Skills

• Enterprise & technology architecture - Proven experience in Enterprise Architecture, Solution Architecture, or Technology Architecture roles, with a strong understanding of governance frameworks, architecture assurance, and technology life cycle management.
• Governance standards & guardrails - Demonstrated ability to develop enterprise technology standards, architectural principles, design guardrails, and reusable governance controls at scale across complex environments.
• LeanIX or equivalent EA tooling - Hands-on experience with LeanIX or a comparable enterprise architecture management platform, including standards management, life cycle information, and governance metadata.
• Governance automation & modernisation - Experience or strong awareness of policy-as-code, automated control validation, and AI-enabled governance approaches to industrialise and scale architecture assurance.
• Stakeholder engagement across functions - Strong communication and influencing skills with the ability to engage across architecture, engineering, security, risk, and change delivery communities, balancing governance rigour with pragmatic delivery outcomes.