Solution Architect - Insurance - £600 a day - Outside IR35 - York - Hybrid

My client requires a Solution Architect with strong insurance domain expertise to lead a major data transformation initiative. This role will play a critical part in shaping and delivering end-to-end architecture, with a heavy focus on low-level design and technical assurance across cloud-based data platforms.

You will work closely with senior stakeholders, engineering teams, and the Chief Data Architect, presenting detailed designs and ensuring alignment with enterprise data strategy., * Own and deliver end-to-end solution architecture across large-scale data initiatives within the insurance domain.

• Produce detailed Low-Level Designs, technical specifications, and architectural artefacts.
• Present designs and obtain approval from the Chief Data Architect (CDA) and architecture governance boards.
• Lead architecture design across GCP, Snowflake, Databricks, and Power BI environments.
• Ensure solutions align with enterprise data, security, and cloud governance standards.
• Define data integration patterns, ingestion frameworks, transformation logic, and reporting structures.
• Provide hands-on architectural guidance to engineering and delivery teams.
• Support data modelling (conceptual, logical, physical) and data lifecycle management.
• Oversee performance optimisation, scalability, resilience, and cost efficiency of cloud platforms.
• Collaborate with product owners, business analysts, and insurance SMEs to translate business requirements into technical solutions.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory standards relevant to insurance (eg, data governance, auditability, data privacy).
• Conduct architecture reviews and support technical decision-making.
• Provide mentorship to senior engineers and technical leads.

• Proven experience as a Solution Architect within the insurance industry (London Market, General Insurance, or Life preferred).
• Strong experience delivering data platform and analytics solutions.
• Deep technical expertise in:

• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Snowflake
• Databricks
• Power BI

• Strong hands-on experience producing Low-Level Designs (LLDs).
• Experience presenting architecture to senior governance forums and CDAs.
• Strong understanding of:

• Data warehousing & lakehouse architectures
• ETL/ELT pipelines
• API and event-driven integration patterns
• Data governance and master data management

• Knowledge of DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, and Infrastructure as Code.
• Experience with security design, IAM, encryption, and cloud-native controls.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
• Ability to operate in fast-paced, complex transformation programmes.

Desirable

• Experience with insurance policy, claims, or underwriting systems.
• Exposure to data migration and Legacy modernisation programmes.
• TOGAF or equivalent architecture certification.
• Experience working in regulated environments.