Change your career, change lives

The Open University is the UK’s largest university, a world leader in flexible part-time education combining a mission to widen access to higher education with research excellence, transforming lives through education. Find out more about us and our mission by watching this short video (you will be taken to YouTube by clicking this link).

About the Role

The Lead Technical Architect will work with stakeholders across a variety of teams to support projects in the delivery solutions to meet user needs, in line with the University’s Learn and Live strategy. They will contribute to the development of the technology strategy and shape principles and standards in support of it. They will also support other Architects and provide advice to technical teams and projects involved in delivering technology solutions across projects in excess of £1m.

Key Responsibilities

• Report into the Head of Enterprise Architecture, and work with architects across the University.
• Understand the organisation’s people, process, systems and data ecosystem and its interdependencies, including reference architectures.
• Contribute to and evangelise the technology strategy and roadmaps from a business, technology and data perspective, including ‘as is’, ‘to be’ and transitional states.
• Establish & communicate architectural principles, policies and standards.
• Take a strategic view of technology across all architectural domains, portfolios and programmes within the University.
• Support the delivery of cross-cutting capabilities that enable change across the University, engaging with delivery teams.
• Consult and support collaboration across the business in support of how technology is used, guiding the organisation to make appropriate business, technology and data decisions by recommending reuse, sustainability and scalability, to achieve value for money and reduce risk.
• Collaborate and consult with stakeholders to ensure that technology decisions are aligned with University strategy, policies and standards. Support complex technology decision making and the framework which supports it.
• Develop the architecture community, supporting and mentoring other architects.
• Carry out horizon scanning across industry, identifying emerging trends and their potential impact and opportunity for the University.

About You

Essential:

• Proven experience of technical, infrastructure and data architecture and its interrelationships with the organisational landscape and strategy of an organisation.
• An understanding of relationships between organisational structures, processes, technology, people and skills within and outside of an enterprise, to achieve transition to the new state - understanding business drivers, goals and constraints and how they relate to user needs.
• Proven experience in defining principles, patterns, standards, policies, roadmaps and vision statements. You can effectively focus on outcomes rather than solutions and activities and contribute to a strategic view of a situation. You can develop, maintain or update the technology strategy in response to feedback and findings. Responsible for the integrity of the systems repository and collaborating with teams to maintain this.
• Proven experience in architecting cloud based solutions across a heterogenous estate, supporting teams in selecting components in line with standards and technology strategy and working iteratively. Experience of completing the required solution governance and managing a solution through governance processes to satisfy stakeholder and governance needs and gain agreement.
• Demonstrable skills in communicating effectively across organisational, technical and political boundaries, understanding the context. Excellent communication between technical and non-technical individuals, showcasing the ability to make complex and technical information and language simple and accessible for non-technical audiences. Advocating on behalf of a team and communicating what it does, to create trust and authenticity. Being able to manage difficult conversations or negotiations and share strategies for this with colleagues.
• The ability to evolve and define governance and support other staff in participating in governance groups and decision making. The ability to define and use tools such as standards, guardrails and principles to effectively govern delivery.
• Excellent decision making skills characterised by managed levels of risk and complexity, and recommend decisions as risk and complexity increase. Resolving technical disputes between wider peers and indirect stakeholders, considering all views and opinions.
• Demonstrable skills in problem definition and shaping. Looking beyond the immediate problem and identify the underlying problems and wider implications across the whole enterprise. Understanding relevant historical context and future impact, and how current work fits in broader contexts and strategies. Horizon scanning to identify future threats or opportunities. Evidence of techniques to make and guide effective decision making, explaining clearly how the decision has been reached. You can understand and resolve technical disputes across varying levels of complexity and risk.
• An awareness of user-centred design, technology and data perspectives. You can understand the range of available technology choices and can make informed decisions based on user need and value for money. You can understand the variety and complexities of digital and data contexts, and can design services to meet them. You can demonstrate knowledge of the wider digital economy and advances in technology.
• A strong commitment to excellence in working with a diverse student population.

Desirable:

• The ability to understand and contribute to commercial contracts, procurement, sourcing and exit strategies. Being able to contribute to supplier selection and evaluation processes, using agreed procurement processes and frameworks such as G-Cloud, the Digital Services Framework and the Digital Marketplace.
• Proven ability to understand business issues, events and activities, and their short to long term impact.
• Experience of contributing to the work of the architecture and technical community, building successful teams through understanding team styles and influencing and motivating team members. Giving and receiving constructive feedback, and moderating conflict resolution within teams. Ensuring that activity within a team is transparent and that the work is understood externally. Being able to help teams maintain a focus on delivery while being aware of the importance of professional development.
• Experience of TOGAF or other architecture frameworks
• Experience working with Salesforce, SAP or Moodle solutions in a heterogenous environment.
• Experience of working in complex organisational transformations, delivering new capabilities in manageable increments.

Support with your application

If you have any questions, or need support or adjustments relating to your application, the recruitment process, or the role, please contact us on 01908 541111 or email careers@open.ac.uk quoting the advert reference number.

What's in it for you?

At The Open University, we offer a range of benefits to recognise and reward great work, alongside policies and flexible working that contribute towards a great work life balance. Get all the details of what benefits we offer by visiting our Staff Benefits page (clicking this link will open a new window).

Flexible working

We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it’s a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.

It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where the successful candidate can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office it is expected that some attendance in the office will be required when necessary and in response to business needs. We’d expect this to be on average 2 times per week.

Next steps in the Recruitment process

Following the initial review of applications submitted for this role, we will be in contact with some candidates to conduct an online screening call. This may take place before the advert for the role closes. The next stage in the process, should you be shortlisted, will be a face-to-face interview that will take place on-site at our Milton Keynes campus. We anticipate that these interviews will likely take place during the week commencing 9 February 2026. 

Early closing date notification

We may close this job advert earlier than the published closing date where a satisfactory number of applications are received. We would therefore encourage early applications.

How to apply

To apply for this role please submit the following documents:

• CV
• A personal statement of up to 200 words. You should set out in your statement why you are interested in the role.

You can view your progress and application communications when you are logged into our recruitment system.  Please check your spam/junk folders if you do not receive associated email updates.