Domain Architect - Buying & Planning

Domain Architect - Buying & Planning

Location: Reading or Dublin (Hybrid working)

Day Rate: Competitive Day Rate (Inside IR35)

Duration: Initial 6 Months

About the Role

We’re looking for a Domain Architect for Buying & Planning to shape the future of Primark’s merchandising, planning, forecasting, allocation, and replenishment technology landscape.

This is a senior strategic role where you’ll partner closely with the Head of Product & Delivery, acting as their trusted architectural adviser. You’ll guide major investment decisions, define the domain roadmap, and ensure our Oracle Retail ecosystem evolves in line with business ambition.

You’ll work alongside a team of Oracle specialists and oversee a group of Solution Architects - providing technical direction, architectural leadership, and clarity of vision.

What You’ll Be Doing

Strategic & Architectural Leadership

• Define the architecture vision, strategy, and multi‐year roadmap for Buying & Planning.
• Shape strategic solution options across merchandising, planning, forecasting, allocation, and replenishment.
• Drive modernisation, simplification, and lifecycle planning across the Oracle Retail estate.
• Lead innovation and horizon scanning to ensure the domain stays ahead of business needs.

Governance & Assurance

• Chair or contribute to domain design forums and represent Buying & Planning at the Enterprise Design Authority.
• Provide design assurance across delivery, approving high‐level designs and ensuring alignment to enterprise principles.
• Strengthen architectural governance, tooling, and documentation across the domain.

Delivery & Collaboration

• Partner with Product, Platform, and Programme leaders to shape demand, sequencing, and investment priorities.
• Lead early ideation and concept shaping for new initiatives.
• Support vendor selection, proof‐of‐concepts, and implementation roadmaps.
• Collaborate with other architecture practices to ensure cross‐domain consistency.

Mentorship & Knowledge Management

• Provide architectural leadership and technical direction to Solution Architects and Engineers.
• Maintain an accurate domain landscape and ensure critical design knowledge is captured and shared.
• Contribute to the growth of the architecture community through coaching and collaboration.

Role Scope & Influence

• Accountable for a domain with £10m–£20m annual technology spend.
• Influence procurement decisions typically valued between £5m–£20m.
• Provide design leadership to 5–10 architects and senior engineers (no direct line management).
• Act as the senior design authority for all Buying & Planning technology decisions.
• Partner with senior leaders across Buying, Planning, Merchandising, Product, and Technology.

What You’ll Bring

Essential Skills

• Strong blend of enterprise and solution architecture experience.
• Deep knowledge of Oracle Retail (e.g., RMS, RPAS, Allocation, Replenishment, Planning & Forecasting).
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills — able to translate complex concepts for non‐technical audiences.
• Strong relationship‐building capability, especially with senior business leaders.
• Strategic thinker with strong analytical and organisational skills.
• Proven architectural leadership across large‐scale programme delivery.
• Broad technical awareness across applications, data, integration, and platforms.
• Experience guiding and mentoring Solution Architects.

Desirable Skills

• Experience with modern planning and forecasting platforms.
• Familiarity with merchandising and planning processes in global retail.
• Exposure to cloud‐native, microservices‐based architectures.
• Experience with analytics, optimisation, or AI‐driven planning tools.
• Awareness of sustainability and circularity considerations in retail product lifecycles.

If you’re excited by the idea of shaping the architecture of a global retailer undergoing major transformation, this is your opportunity to make a real impact.