Solution Architect Lead, Francis Crick
£71.5k
More information about location
3 days a week in office
Biomedical research institute
Open for applications
Biomedical research institute
1001+ employees
Open for applications
£71.5k
More information about location
3 days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To discover without boundaries.
Role
Who you are
- A background in scientific industries such as pharma or research is a plus but above all, we’re looking for a collaborative leader with vision, adaptability, and the drive to make a real impact
- Educated to degree level or equivalent experience, ideally in Computer Science or related STEM subject.*
- Experience of working as a solution architect or equivalent role, leading solution design reviews across different teams*
- Experience of building strong stakeholder relationships with external business users and internal technology platform and service owners as well as subject matter experts*
- Strong understanding of the full technology stack including: infrastructure, data, integration and application and reporting layers
- Experience working on IT infrastructure, enterprise platform or Software development projects, from design and delivery through to service operation
- Experience in contributing to IT architecture policies, including infrastructure, integration, and Information Security
What the job involves
- Reports to: Anita Jena-Smol
- We are seeking an experienced and proactive Solution Architect Lead (known internally as Technical Design Lead) to drive the design of innovative IT services that power Crick Science and Operations
- In this pivotal role, collaboration is key. You will partner across diverse teams from research data and software engineering to high‑performance computing, ensuring that technical design reflects the needs of scientists, analysts, project managers, and stakeholders at every level
- As part of one of the world’s leading biomedical research institutes, you’ll be creating solutions that push the boundaries of what’s possible. This is a full spectrum role spanning technology, process, and people, where no two projects are the same. You’ll foster engagement, alignment, and understanding that technology is only part of the answer, while enabling end‑to‑end solutions that support ground breaking science
- Lead the technical design process, sitting within the wider project management office which owns the delivery process from idea to implementation
- Inspire and lead a small team of dedicated architects alongside subject matter experts and solution architects embedded in other teams
- Proactively seek ways to optimise and improve the technical design function
- Foster a community of technical subject matter experts across the IT Office, providing advice and guidance on great solution design
- Creating compliant and robust solution architectures aligned with business and legal requirements, as well as IT policy
- Supporting the handover of technical design and platform from project to operations
- Understanding of the Crick and ITO’s strategy, ensuring the technology roadmap meets current and future objectives
Application process
- Closing Date: 18/Jan/2026 23.59 GMT
Salary benchmarks
Our take
The Francis Crick Institute was founded in 2015 through the merger of the MRC's National Institute for Medical Research and CRUK's London Research Institute. Its mission is to push the boundaries of our understanding of how life works, and it is the largest single-site biomedical research institute in Europe.
One of the Institute's strengths is its ability to collaborate extensively with external research groups, boasting partnerships in more than 90 countries. These collaborations, however, pose data protection challenges due to the need to transfer vast amounts of sensitive information across borders. The Institute has addressed this by developing its own Trusted Research Environment toolkit, which allows remote teams to share data securely and compliantly in the cloud.
The institute secured £1 billion in funding back in 2022, and is maximising its effectiveness through the BRIDGE network and investments in AI and machine learning. A notable example is Google’s subsidiary DeepMind establishing a research lab within the institute to enhance biology and genomics research.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
10% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (1 round)
Jul 2022
$1.4bn
GRANT
Total funding: $1.4bn
Company benefits
- 28 days of holiday each year, plus three additional days (usually taken over Christmas) and bank holidays
- Defined contribution pension scheme, with the Crick contributing between 3% - 16% of salary
- Life assurance
- Season ticket/car parking loan
- Annual leave purchase
- Childcare support allowance
- Back-up dependent care
- Discounted annual gym membership
- Bike to Work scheme
- Payroll giving
- Shopping discounts
Company HQ
Somers Town, London, UK
Leadership
Paul Nurse
(CEO)The first Director and Chief Executive of the Francis Crick Institute. Was previously President of Rockefeller University in New York. In 2001 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine as part of a team that discovered the role of protein molecules that control the duplication of cells.
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