Head of Architecture and Portfolio

Working closely with business leaders, delivery teams and suppliers, the role establishes the technology roadmap, governs architectural standards, and oversees the change portfolio to maximise business value, reduce risk and accelerate strategic outcomes.

This role is a senior leadership role, leading teams of architects, portfolio office including programme/project managers, and reports to the CIO.

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Responsibilities

Enterprise Architecture

• Define and maintain the enterprise architecture strategy and target operating model.
• Develop and manage business, application, data and technology architectures.
• Ensure all projects and programmes align with architectural principles and standards.
• Lead technology roadmaps and capability planning.
• Drive application rationalisation and technical debt reduction initiatives.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and provide recommendations on adoption.
• Maintain architecture governance processes and design authorities.

Portfolio Management

• Own the technology and digital change portfolio.
• Establish portfolio management frameworks, controls and reporting.
• Prioritise investments based on strategic alignment, benefits, risks and resource capacity.
• Ensure effective portfolio planning and sequencing of initiatives.
• Monitor portfolio performance, dependencies and delivery risks.
• Oversee benefit realisation and value tracking.
• Provide executive reporting to the CIO, Executive Team and governance boards.

Governance & Assurance

• Chair or lead Boards and Change Governance forums.
• Ensure compliance with security, regulatory and business policies.
• Define and maintain architecture and portfolio management standards.
• Support internal and external audits.
• Drive continuous improvement of governance processes.

Stakeholder Management

• Partner with business leaders to understand strategic priorities and translate them into technology initiatives.
• Collaborate with transformation programmes and initiatives to enable via technology
• Collaborate with product owners, programme managers and delivery teams.
• Build strong relationships with key suppliers and partners.
• Influence senior stakeholders on investment and technology decisions.

Leadership

• Lead and develop architecture and portfolio management teams.
• Establish a high-performance culture focused on delivery, innovation and collaboration.
• Coach architects and portfolio professionals.
• Promote best practice in architecture, governance and change management.
• Executive Reporting and Decision Support Essential Skills & Experience
• Experience
• Significant experience in Enterprise Architecture, Technology Strategy or Portfolio Management leadership roles.
• Proven experience managing complex change portfolios.
• Experience operating at senior leadership level within a regulated or large-scale organisation.
• Demonstrable experience establishing governance frameworks and architectural standards.
• Track record of delivering strategic business transformation programmes.
• Technical Knowledge
• Enterprise Architecture frameworks (TOGAF, Zachman or equivalent).
• Portfolio Management frameworks (MoP, PPM, SAFe or equivalent).
• Cloud platforms and modern digital architectures.
• Data management, integration and cyber security principles.
• Application lifecycle and technology roadmap management.
• Leadership Skills
• Strategic thinking and business acumen.
• Strong influencing and stakeholder management.
• Executive communication and presentation skills.
• Commercial and financial management.
• Team leadership and people development.

Qualifications

Essential

• Degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering or related discipline.
• Enterprise Architecture certification (TOGAF or equivalent).

Desirable

• MSP, MoP, Prince2 or Agile certifications.
• MBA or relevant postgraduate qualification.
• ITIL certification.
• Cloud certifications (Microsoft Azure, AWS or Google Cloud).

Costain helps to improve people’s lives with integrated, leading edge, smart infrastructure solutions across the UK’s energy, water, transportation and defence markets. We help our clients improve their business performance by increasing capacity, improving customer service, safeguarding security, enhancing resilience, decarbonising and delivering increased efficiency. Our vision is to be the UK’s leading smart infrastructure solutions company. We will achieve this by focusing on blue chip clients whose major spending plans are underpinned by strategic national needs, regulatory commitments, legislation or essential performance requirements. We offer our clients leading edge solutions that are digitally optimised through the following five services which cover the whole lifecycle of their assets: future-shaping strategic consultancy; consultancy and advisory; digital technology solutions; asset optimisation and complex programme delivery. Our culture and values underpin everything we do.

Costain appreciate the time and effort taken when applying for one of our positions but, due to the high volume of responses, we are unable to provide individual feedback on candidates at application phase.

We do share individual feedback following an interview.

A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that disclose they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer.

It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people.

For more details please go to the Disability Confident website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/disability-confident-campaign