Solutions Architect

Enterprise Solution Architect – Payments (Contract)

London – (Hybrid)

Contract: ASAP – 30 July 2026

Rate: +- £1,000 per day

Interview process: 2 stages

We are seeking a highly experienced Enterprise / Solution Architect with deep, hands-on expertise in payments scheme migrations and transformation programmes. This is not a generic architecture role – we are specifically looking for professionals with proven delivery experience in complex, regulated payments environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead solution architecture across payments migration and transformation programmes (PMI)
• Design and guide end-to-end payments processing architectures
• Work closely with engineering, SMEs, and operations teams to deliver pragmatic, production-ready solutions
• Define and validate architecture across gateway, clearing, settlement, and reconciliation layers
• Identify risks early and support safe migration of live payment systems
• Ensure alignment across architecture, delivery, and regulatory stakeholders

Must-Have Experience

• Senior-level experience in payments migration programmes
• Deep knowledge of UK payment schemes:
• BACS
• Faster Payments (FPS)
• Strong international payments experience:
• SWIFT
• SEPA
• Proven experience in payments risk, controls, and regulatory assurance CASS
• CISA-aligned frameworks or equivalent audit/controls experience

Hands-On Technical Expertise

• Direct experience in core payments processing environments
• Scheme integration, migration, or transformation delivery
• Understanding of: Payment gateways and connectivity layers (e.g. SWIFT, MQ, scheme interfaces)
• Message transformation and routing (MT/MX handling)
• Core payment engines and processing logic
• Reconciliation and downstream processing
• Familiarity with mainframe-integrated architectures is highly desirable

Migration & Legacy Experience

• Experience working in complex legacy environments
• Ability to reconcile documented vs real system behaviour
• Strong understanding of real-world constraints vs ideal-state designs
• Focus on minimising risk in live payment systems

Communication & Leadership

• Ability to clearly articulate architecture decisions and ownership across payment flows
• Strong stakeholder management across technical and business teams
• Comfortable working with senior SMEs and delivery teams in high-pressure environments