Azure Solutions Architect

Half your time: pre-sales. Lead solution design on live pursuits. Own the technical content of proposals, SOWs, and RFPs. Estimate scope, effort, and commercial risk - and defend those estimates. Be the senior technical voice in pitches, briefings, and bake-offs. Run discovery workshops that convert to paid engagements. Productise offerings into repeatable scopes, prices, reference architectures, demos, and estimating models.

The other half: delivery leadership. Own architecture from design authority to production. Set the technical quality bar. Hold the line on governance and security. Resolve escalations. Turn delivered work into references and case studies. Mentor consultants.

Microsoft alliance runs through both. Build relationships with PDMs, AEs, CSAs, and technology specialists. Support co-sell motions, partner funding, and joint account planning. Lead funded pre-sales: assessments, proofs of value, migration plans, workload assessments, target architectures, and Azure consumption estimates.

Azure is the priority. The Microsoft go-to-market rests on three pillars, and this role answers for the first: Azure, Fabric, and the AI and data layer., * Greenfield practice growth. Build the Azure pillar in the UK with direct credit for wins and delivery.

• Microsoft alliance at the centre. Field relationships turn into pipeline. Delivered work becomes references.
• Client-facing seniority. Shape solutions and influence commercial growth. Credible with a CIO in the morning and a developer in the afternoon.
• Compensation tied to practice growth, not delivery utilisation.
• Accelerated career path with global scaling.
• Fully remote, anywhere in the UK.

• Experience: 10+ years in Microsoft-stack consulting or solution architecture, with 3+ years in pre-sales/bid/solutioning at a Microsoft partner, SI, or consultancy.
• Azure depth: Deep Azure at enterprise scale - landing zones, identity, networking, security, cost management. Hands-on Microsoft Fabric or comparable enterprise data platform, including capacity and licensing models.
• Azure AI: Designing solutions on Microsoft Foundry or Azure OpenAI (retrieval, service selection, quota/cost, evaluation, responsible AI). Can explain the Copilot Studio vs. Foundry boundary and its licensing/governance/flexibility trade-offs.
• Commercial & field: Commercial track record: proposals written, deals closed, pitches led. Comfortable sizing and pricing work, accountable for estimates. Experience with Microsoft field teams, partner funding, and co-sell approvals.
• Additional: Experience taking a cloud, data, or agent estate from pilot to governed scale. Excellent English communication (written and verbal). Must be based in the UK and eligible to work in the UK without sponsorship. Consultancy manner - comfortable in front of customers, not purely back-office.
• Certification: No AZ-305 requirement. Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert is not required. Other certifications are nice-to-have, not a gate., * Power Platform or Copilot Studio depth.
• Additional certifications: Cybersecurity Architect Expert, Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer Associate, Fabric Data Engineer/Analytics Engineer Associate, Azure Database Administrator Associate, Power Platform Developer Associate.
• Integration across legacy/cloud estates, including Dynamics 365.
• Fabric adjacency: Databricks coexistence, Purview governance, Synapse-to-Fabric migration.
• Agent engineering: Microsoft Agent Framework, MCP tool integration, agent evaluation and observability.
• Healthcare or Financial Services experience.
• Exposure to UiPath, ServiceNow, or other model providers.
• Practice-building experience.

If you’re an elite Azure Solution Architect passionate about Microsoft cloud, Agentic AI, and building a practice from the ground up - and you’re ready to work alongside the best in the industry - I’d love to hear from you.