Associate Director, Microsoft Cloud Architect

Success in this role is measured by the architectures you establish, the clients you advise, the engagements you deliver and the reputation you build for Deloitte in the sector. You will be expected to:

• Define and embed a set of cyber resilience and recovery reference architectures spanning on-premises, hybrid and multi-cloud environments, adopted as the baseline for Deloitte engagements and by clients across financial services.
• Design resilient recovery capabilities - for example isolated / clean-room recovery environments, immutable and air-gapped backups, and rapid, tested restoration - that meet stringent recovery time and recovery point objectives for critical services.
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior client stakeholders - translating important business services and impact tolerances into clear, defensible resilience and recovery architectures and pragmatic roadmaps.
• Lead the architecture workstream on complex engagements from strategy through to delivery, owning technical quality, risk and the coherence of the end-to-end solution.
• Reconcile competing demands - cloud-first ambition against operational resilience, third-party and concentration risk, and data protection obligations - into designs clients can safely operate, test and evidence to regulators.
• Strengthen clients’ ability to withstand and recover from destructive cyber events - embedding recovery testing, threat-led exercising and anomaly detection so that recoverability is proven, not assumed.
• Build Deloitte’s external eminence in resilience and recovery: authoring published points of view and thought leadership, and representing the firm at client, industry and sector forums.
• Strengthen the capability around you - mentoring architects and engineers, contributing to assets, patterns and standards, and supporting the growth of the practice’s pipeline and bids.

• Demonstrable experience designing and delivering enterprise-scale cloud and hybrid architectures across one or more major providers (Azure preferred), including on-premises, hybrid and multi-cloud patterns.
• Deep expertise in cyber resilience and recovery architecture - for example isolated recovery environments / clean rooms, immutable and air-gapped backups, backup and recovery design, cyber recovery testing, recovery assurance, and meeting demanding RTO/RPO targets for critical workloads.
• Experience designing for and recovering from destructive cyber events - ransomware and malware containment, resilient restoration, and business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) for critical services.
• A track record of developing and owning reference architectures, blueprints, patterns and target operating designs, and of setting architectural standards and design governance and technology risk controls adherence.
• Experience working in or with one of the Financial Services sector, the Energy, Resources and Industrials sector showing an understanding of the regulatory and control environment.
• A strong understanding of how operational resilience regulation shapes design - important business services and impact tolerances (e.g. FCA/PRA/Bank of England), DORA, third-party and concentration risk, and resilience testing expectations.
• Proven ability to operate as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders - shaping strategy, building the business case and articulating an authoritative point of view on resilience and recovery.
• Equally strong delivery credentials - leading architecture on complex engagements or programmes end to end, balancing business requirements against security, cost, operability and risk.
• Experience of the consulting or advisory model, or a comparable client-facing environment, with the commercial awareness to contribute to bids, proposals and practice growth.
• Excellent communication skills, able to translate complex technical concepts for both technical and executive, non-technical audiences, and to present to architecture boards or design authorities.
• A demonstrable appetite for building external eminence - thought leadership, published points of view, or speaking - or clear potential and ambition to do so.
• Deep understanding of cloud security and resilience-by-design principles, including Zero Trust, identity security, privileged access management and secure landing zone architectures.
• Hands-on experience with enterprise resilience and recovery technologies such as Azure Site Recovery, Azure Backup, Microsoft Defender or equivalent platforms., * Recognised certifications - for example professional-level cloud architect credentials in Azure, security certifications, and architecture frameworks such as TOGAF.
• Hands-on familiarity with cyber recovery and immutable-storage technologies and isolated-recovery / cyber-vault solutions across cloud and on-premises platforms.
• Experience of resilience and recovery testing, scenario-based severe-but-plausible testing, and automated restore-and-validate pipelines.
• Knowledge of incident response and crisis management, and how architecture supports containment, forensics and coordinated recovery.
• Familiarity with Zero Trust, secure-by-design principles and cloud-native security and networking controls.
• Awareness of multi-cloud and hybrid patterns and the trade-offs of resilience, portability and provider concentration risk, including on-premises fallback for critical services.
• Knowledge of relevant security and resilience standards (e.g. ISO 27001, ISO 22301, NIST CSF) as applied in regulated financial environments.
• Experience mentoring and growing architecture teams, and contributing to reusable assets, accelerators and intellectual property.

Deloitte’s Engineering practice is at the forefront of transforming businesses by bringing together cutting-edge tech programme delivery, quality assurance, and testing expertise. We empower clients to modernise their core business through our deep capabilities in application and infrastructure engineering, cloud strategy, transformation, and migration. Practitioners within this team continuously advance their expertise to deliver robust, innovative solutions, from initial strategy to implementation and optimization.

Deloitte is growing its resilience capability and is looking for an experienced cloud architect to lead our work on cyber resilience and recovery. Working alongside our industry teams and clients in areas such as Financial Services, Energy, Resources & Industrials, and others, you will drive the development of reference architectures that keep critical services running and recoverable in the face of cyber attack and disruption - spanning on-premises, hybrid and multi-cloud service providers.

This role sits at the intersection of cloud architecture, cyber security and operational resilience. You will design how organisations protect, isolate and rapidly recover their most important business services - reconciling a cloud-first direction of travel with regulatory driven resilience obligations, including the ability to remain within impact tolerances and to recover from severe-but-plausible scenarios such as ransomware and destructive attacks.

This is a senior, client-facing role that blends two demands in equal measure: trusted advisory to senior client stakeholders on their resilience and recovery strategy, and hands-on leadership of engagement delivery. Alongside client work, you will build Deloitte’s external eminence - authoring points of view, shaping reference materials and representing the firm at industry forums - establishing yourself and Deloitte as a recognised authority on cyber resilience and recovery in financial services.

Connect to your career at Deloitte

Deloitte drives progress. Using our vast range of expertise, we help our clients’ become leaders wherever they choose to compete. To do this, we invest in outstanding people. We build teams of future thinkers, with diverse talents and backgrounds, and empower them all to reach for and achieve more.

What brings us all together at Deloitte? It’s how we approach the thousands of decisions we make every day. How we behave, our beliefs and our attitudes. In other words: our values. Whatever we do, wherever we are in the world, we lead the way, serve with integrity, take care of each other, foster inclusion, and collaborate for measurable impact. These five shared values lead every decision we make and action we take, guiding us to deliver impact how and where it matters most., Distinctive thinking, deep expertise, innovation and collaborative working. That’s what connects us. That’s what makes us Deloitte. If you want to help solve some of the biggest tech and transformational challenges around, join us. Together, we’ll make an impact that matters.

Engineering, AI and Data

We lead transformation at the heart of our clients; re-engineering the core of our clients’ organisations, helping to unleash growth, and creating better futures for their customers, citizens and employees.

Personal independence

Regulation and controls are standard practice in our industry and Deloitte is no exception. These controls provide important legal protection for both you and the firm. We are subject to a number of audit regulations, one of which requires that certain colleagues abide by specific personal independence constraints (e.g., in relation to any financial interests and employment relationships). This can mean that you and your “Immediate Family Members” are not permitted to hold certain financial interests (shares, funds, bonds etc.) with audit clients of the firm, and also prohibitions on certain employment relationships (e.g., you are not permitted to hold a secondary employment role with SEC audit clients of the firm whilst being employed by the firm). The recruitment team will provide further detail as you progress through the recruitment process or you can contact the Independence team upon request.

Connect with your colleagues

“What attracted me to Deloitte were the endless opportunities and the collective experience of other like-minded individuals. Deloitte’s clients include many of the world’s largest organisations; I wanted to be part of a team that made a difference that I could be proud of.” - Dan, Technology and Transformation

“I get to work on projects that help clients in a sector I feel truly passionate about.” - Rhiannon, Technology and Transformation

“Everyone always says, “it’s the people,” and that’s true. Working for a brand you feel proud of feels pretty good too. And you don’t have any stress about fitting into a particular stereotype, because there are so many different types of people in Deloitte Digital.” - Gillian, Technology and Transformation

Our hybrid working policy

You’ll be based in one of our UK offices with hybrid working., For this role we can offer coaching and support designed for returners to refresh your knowledge and skills, and help your transition back into the workplace after a career break of two years or more. If this is relevant for you, just let your recruiter know when you make your application.

Our commitment to you

Making an impact is more than just what we do: it’s why we’re here. So we work hard to create an environment where you can experience a purpose you believe in, the freedom to be you, and the capacity to go further than ever before.

We want you. The true you. Your own strengths, perspective and personality. So we’re nurturing a culture where everyone belongs, feels supported and heard, and is empowered to make a valuable, personal contribution. You can be sure we’ll take your wellbeing seriously, too. Because it’s only when you’re comfortable and at your best that you can make the kind of impact you, and we, live for.

Your expertise is our capability, so we’ll make sure it never stops growing. Whether it’s from the complex work you do, or the people you collaborate with, you’ll learn every day. Through world-class development, you’ll gain invaluable technical and personal skills. Whatever your level, you’ll learn how to lead.