Lead Architect (Third Party)

JOB BAND: E

CONTRACT TYPE: Permanent, Full-time

DEPARTMENT: BBC Product Group, Enablement

LOCATION: London, Glasgow, Salford, Newcastle, Cardiff

PROPOSED SALARY RANGE: £95,000 - £110,000 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights

We're happy to discuss flexible working. If you'd like to, please indicate your preference in the application – though there's no obligation to do so now. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

We are seeking a technically strong and strategically minded Lead Architect for this new role within Product Group’s Enablement team. You’ll play a key role in ensuring third-party suppliers have the understanding and ability to integrate solutions with our internal architecture.

This role will act as a bridge between external delivery teams and our internal architecture and engineering functions, ensuring scalable, secure, and maintainable solutions are delivered in line with our technical vision.

This role will include technical leadership, strategic direction, and hands-on influence across the business.

WHY JOIN THE TEAM

In this role you’ll join a world-class team of technology leaders helping the BBC to become the world’s leading global media organisation. Our mission - informing, educating, and entertaining audiences – is more important than ever, and the right technology solutions are critical for the BBC to thrive in an ever-changing digital world. We already have a strong, modern, cloud-based architecture, but there is potential for so much more. This is a role where you can really make a difference – both to the technology and to society.

YOUR KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND IMPACT:

• Act as a senior technical leader in select engagements with third-party suppliers, reviewing solution designs, APIs, data flows, and integration patterns.
• Identify architectural gaps and opportunities for improvement in BBC solutions where suppliers could add value such as by rationalising multiple similar solutions or addressing underlying technical debt to reduce overheads.
• Contribute to designing and facilitating governance forums.
• Collaborate with architects and suppliers to document and maintain architectural decisions.
• Participate in regular reviews and governance processes to assure the products, services or custom build work supplied by third parties meets expectations.

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA:

Proven experience as a senior technical leader, such as an architect or principal engineer.

• Strong experience in developing cloud-native architectures (ideally AWS).
• Proven experience in solution architecture, ideally in multi-vendor environments.
• Experience with API design, microservices, event-driven architecture, and integration patterns.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate with multi-disciplinary in-house agile teams to deliver on architectural strategy.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, building partnerships across the organisation.
• Ability to challenge and influence technical decisions constructively.

DESIRED BUT NOT REQUIRED:

• Experience evaluating existing and emerging technologies to support teams in solving complex problems.
• A commitment to continuous learning, staying informed on emerging technologies, industry trends, and evolving best practices.

If you can bring some of these skills and experience, along with transferable strengths, we’d love to hear from you and encourage you to apply.

Before your start date, you may need to disclose any unspent convictions or police charges, in line with our Contracts of Employment policy. This allows us to discuss any support you may need and assess any risks. Failure to disclose may result in the withdrawal of your offer.

Disclaimer

This is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

Please note: If you were to be offered this role, the BBC will conduct Employment screening checks which include Reference checks; Eligibility to work checks; and if applicable to the role, Safeguarding and Adverse media/Social media checks. Any offer made is conditional on these checks being satisfactory.

For any general queries, please contact: [email protected]

Redeployment

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.