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NHS England
About
NHS England’s purpose is to create the conditions for an ambitious and high quality NHS. We empower our people and partners to solve problems, provide outstanding care for every patient and improve the nation's health.
Our 7 regional teams work directly with systems and NHS providers across the country. Each region acts as the interface between national strategy and local delivery, overseeing performance, supporting improvement and enabling transformation at scale.
Senior Solution Architect
Accepting applications until: 31-Aug-2026 23:59
Vacancy status: Open
Accepting applications until: 31-Aug-2026 23:59
Key details
Location
- Site
- Any NHS England Office
- Town
- Nationally
- Postcode
- LS1 4AP
- Major / Minor Region
- West Yorkshire
Contract type & working pattern
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time
- Part time
- Job share
- Flexible working
Salary
- Salary
- £95,404 - £109,930 pa including 20% RRP (exclusive of London weighting)
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Grade
- (NHS AfC: Band 8c)
Specialty
- Main area
- Architecture & Standards
Our Organisation
We share the core values set out in the NHS Constitution, which all colleagues are expected to demonstrate.
We support you to work in a way that is best for the NHS, our patients and you and your colleagues. Talk to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement, whether that’s a job share, part time, hybrid working or another flexible pattern.
Job overview
Data and Analytics is at the heart of delivering the NHS’s 10 Year Health Plan, having responsibility for delivering National Programs worth £1.5 billion. This is a generational opportunity to use technology to change the way the NHS works. We will be turning national ambition into the data, digital and platform capabilities that will transform how patient care is delivered, planned, managed and improved. Amongst those programs and capabilities are:
- Single Patient Record- transforming the current disjointed digital landscape to produce patient and clinician facing services that operate seamlessly regardless of care context or location
- AI factory – providing capabilities to create AI services across the NHS making best use of the latest technologies and models.
- Event Based Architecture-providing a real-time data capability to enable better intelligence across all NHS services and join up care.
We are building faster, safer services with better operational decisions to advanced analytics, research and responsible AI at scale. We are looking for talented Senior Solution Architects to help shape some of NHS England’s most exciting and strategically important technology work, translating ambition into practical architectures, reusable patterns and assured solutions that can operate safely at national scale.
Advert
Snr Solution Architects play a key role in shaping & delivering safe, scalable data and platform capabilities that enable AI-enabled products, advanced analytics, research, operational insight & intelligent automation across NHSE.
Main duties
- Lead the development of solution architectures for scalable data, platform and AI-enabled capabilities across NHSE, ensuring designs are modular, interoperable, reusable and aligned to enterprise architecture, data, security, information governance, clinical safety & assurance standards
- Translate strategic objectives into practical architecture patterns, delivery guardrails, reusable components and implementation approaches that support operational insight, advanced analytics, research, intelligent automation and future platform extensibility
- Provide technical leadership across multidisciplinary product, engineering, data, clinical safety, information governance, research governance, supplier and enterprise architecture teams, ensuring that architecture decisions are clearly understood and effectively applied
- Shape and assure designs for intelligent orchestration, governed data access, reusable APIs, data products, integration patterns, auditability, monitoring, access controls and appropriate human oversight mechanisms
- Support the development and reuse of architecture principles, reference patterns, design standards and technical guardrails that enable consistent, safe and scalable delivery across multiple products and use cases.
Working for our organisation
NHS England has a wide range of statutory functions, responsibilities and regulatory powers. These are focused on supporting the wider NHS to deliver high quality care, as well as doing those things that are best done once for the whole NHS.
Our staff bring expertise across clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial specialisms — enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.
In March 2025, the Government announced that NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the department.
If you currently work within the NHS and if successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the process.
Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in our offices.
Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.
We cannot offer visa sponsorship for any vacancies.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The postholder will lead solution architecture for reusable platform and orchestration capabilities, ensuring designs are modular, interoperable, extensible and aligned to NHS England architecture, data, security, clinical safety, information governance and assurance standards.
The role will provide technical leadership across product teams, suppliers and governance forums, translating strategic ambition into practical architecture patterns, delivery guardrails and reusable components. This includes supporting the evolution of intelligent orchestration capabilities, governed APIs, auditability, access controls, data, model and agent boundaries, and appropriate human oversight mechanisms across multiple operational, analytical and research contexts.
The postholder will act as a key architectural link between strategic data and platform enablement, delivery teams and the wider vision for reusable, governed and intelligent NHS capabilities. They will work closely with product, engineering, clinical safety, information governance, enterprise architecture, research governance and supplier teams to assure designs, resolve dependencies and enable delivery of robust, trusted, scalable and reusable capabilities that create operational value.
The post of Senior Solution Architect has been awarded a Recruitment and Retention Premia (RRP) in response to current labour market conditions. In recognition of this, the role attracts an additional monthly RRP payment equal to 20% per annum.
Please be aware that RRP is none contractual and subject to review.
You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.
Please ensure your supporting statement includes demonstratable evidence and specific examples on how you meet the criteria for each of the key skills specified. This will be used in both the shortlisting and interview processes
Applicant requirements
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Degree or equivalent higher education qualification, specifically in a computing, scientific or mathematical subject, or equivalent such as would be acquired through a taught Masters course.
Knowledge
Desirable criteria
- Technical Specialism - Has specialist knowledge of AI-enabled architectures, including agentic systems, MCP/ACP patterns, orchestration layers, reusable agent capabilities, governed APIs, auditability and human oversight controls, and is experienced in advising on their safe application.
- Data Management - Able to establish robust big data management practices, covering governance, quality, lineage, interoperability, security and accessibility, so large-scale datasets are trusted, reusable and translated into actionable insight and measurable outcomes.
Skills
Essential criteria
- Solution Architecture - Able to lead the solution architecture for an MCP-enabled intelligent orchestration layer, ensuring designs are modular, reusable, standards-aligned and capable of connecting AI-enabled products, data sources, agents, tools and operational workflows across the wider NHS architecture.
- Assurance of Supplier Solutions - Acts as the technical lead for the evolving AI intelligence layer, assuring supplier and internal designs against agreed agentic architecture principles, including MCP/ACP interoperability, agent registry, action boundaries, access controls, monitoring and safety constraints.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Enterprise Architecture - Experience of contributing to the creation and review of a systems capability strategy which meets the strategic requirements of the business. Develops models and plans to drive forward the strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance.
- Stakeholder Management and Communication - Evidence of liaising with stakeholders, suppliers and programme teams, communicating technical concepts and complex issues clearly and accurately, adapting communication style to suit the recipient
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Aidan Davies-Webb
- Job title
- Deputy Director of Data Architecture
- Email address
- [email protected]
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