Senior Solution Architect (Compute & Storage)- London, Bristol or Edinburgh

About The Role

FDM is a global business and technology consultancy seeking a Senior Solution Architect (Compute & Storage) to work for our client within the Financial Services sector. This is initially a 6-12 month contract with the potential to extend and will be a hybrid role that will be based in London, Bristol or Edinburgh . 

Our client is seeking a senior Solution Architect with deep expertise across enterprise compute, storage and infrastructure platforms to support a strategic programme of transformation and modernisation across its on-premise estate.

This individual will provide architectural leadership across infrastructure initiatives, defining target-state architectures, technical standards, roadmaps and solution designs whilst working closely with engineering, operations, security and vendor teams. The role requires a blend of strategic thinking and hands-on technical credibility, with a particular focus on resilient, secure and scalable infrastructure platforms.

• Lead the architecture and design of enterprise compute and storage solutions.
• Produce High Level Designs (HLDs), reference architectures, technical standards and roadmap artefacts.
• Define future-state infrastructure architecture aligned to business, operational and security requirements.
• Provide architectural governance and technical assurance across infrastructure programmes.
• Support platform engineering teams through design reviews, prototyping and implementation guidance.
• Develop strategies covering capacity planning, performance optimisation, data lifecycle management and storage governance.
• Design highly available, resilient and recoverable infrastructure solutions.
• Drive standardisation, automation and operational efficiency across the technology estate.
• Evaluate technology options and vendor solutions, providing clear recommendations and trade-off analysis.
• Collaborate with architecture, engineering, security, operations and application teams to ensure successful delivery of solutions.

About You

Architecture & Delivery

• Significant experience operating as a Solution Architect within large, complex enterprise environments.
• Proven track record delivering infrastructure transformation and modernisation initiatives.
• Experience creating architecture roadmaps, standards, patterns and governance frameworks.
• Experience operating within mature architecture functions and design authority structures.
• Experience working within regulated industries and enterprise-scale organisations.

Compute & Infrastructure

• Strong expertise in enterprise compute platforms including:
• Nutanix AHV
• Prism Central
• HCI architectures
• Server lifecycle management
• Virtualisation technologies
• Strong understanding of workload placement, performance optimisation and infrastructure scalability.

Storage Technologies

• Deep knowledge of Dell enterprise storage platforms including:
• PowerStore
• PowerScale
• PowerMax
• ECS
• Experience with SAN, NAS, storage networking and data lifecycle management.
• Experience defining storage governance and data tiering strategies.

Containers & Platform Engineering

• Strong knowledge of Red Hat OpenShift and Kubernetes-based platforms.
• Experience designing container hosting platforms and platform service architectures.
• Understanding of observability, monitoring and platform resilience.

Resilience & Security

• Experience designing backup, recovery and disaster recovery architectures.
• Strong understanding of cyber resilience and ransomware recovery capabilities.
• Experience with immutable storage and replication strategies.
• Exposure to Rubrik is highly desirable.
• Strong grasp of infrastructure security principles including segmentation, encryption, privileged access management and secure-by-design architecture.

Automation & Cloud

• Experience with infrastructure automation and orchestration technologies.
• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code, APIs and configuration management tooling.
• Experience integrating on-premise environments with Azure or other public cloud platforms.
• Understanding of hybrid-cloud workload mobility strategies.

Leadership & Stakeholder Management

• Strong executive communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to influence and build consensus across technical and non-technical audiences.
• Comfortable presenting architecture options, risks and recommendations to senior leadership.
• Ability to balance strategic architecture objectives with practical delivery requirements.

Preferred Qualifications

• TOGAF, Open CA, BCS Enterprise & Solution Architecture or equivalent certification.
• Cloud or infrastructure certifications.
• Security architecture certifications.
• Degree or equivalent qualification in a technology-related discipline.

Ideal Candidate Profile

We are looking for a senior infrastructure-focused architect who combines deep technical expertise across compute, storage and platform technologies with the ability to lead enterprise architecture decisions, influence stakeholders and drive modernisation initiatives across a complex hybrid estate.

FDM is an award-winning global leader in tech and business talent solutions, backed by more than 35 years of industry experience. We have centres across Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific, and a global workforce of over 2500 employees. FDM has shown exponential growth throughout the years, firmly establishing itself as an award-winning employer, currently listed on the FTSE4Good Index and as a 2026 Financial Times UK ‘Best Employer’.

Diversity and Inclusion

FDM Group is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or any other status protected by federal, provincial or local laws.

Why join us

• Career coaching, mentoring and access to upskilling throughout your entire FDM career
• Assignments with global companies and opportunities to work abroad
• Opportunity to re-skill and up-skill into new areas, develop non-linear career paths and build a skillset within your field
• Annual leave and work-place pension