Location: Reading, Berkshire
Rate: Up to £91.75/hour
Clearance: Active SC is mandatory
The opportunity
We’re seeking an Enterprise Architect to support sensitive aerospace and defence programmes in Reading. This contract position focuses on Digital Engineering, with responsibility for integrating Virtual Environment solutions across the wider Digital Engineering landscape—covering people, process, and technology.
You’ll act as the focal point for Virtual Environment architecture, providing expert guidance across the delivery organisation and helping drive governance, reuse, and secure-by-design principles across the lifecycle.
What you’ll be doing (key responsibilities)
* Develop and maintain high-level and low-level designs (HLD/LLD).
* Provide architectural leadership across people, process, and technology for Virtual Environment / Digital Engineering.
* Support delivery of Digital Twin / Digital Thread, virtual testing, qualification/certification, and training solutions.
* Apply modelling & simulation principles including real-time/time-domain simulation and “fail first” integration philosophy.
* Translate architecture policies and risk requirements into actionable design standards, governance, and compliance frameworks.
* Support architectural governance, security, regulatory and audit requirements.
* Write and manage RFI and RFQ, and contribute to tool/platform evaluations and proofs of concept.
* Work closely with Product Owners, Delivery Managers, engineering teams, IT, and suppliers—managing stakeholder expectations and delivery impacts.
What we’re looking for (requirements)
* Strong Enterprise / Business Architecture experience within MOD, Defence Digital, or UK aerospace/defence environments.
* Active SC clearance (mandatory); DV preferred.
* Experience across enterprise, system, data, and technical architecture.
* Strong understanding of digital engineering concepts (digital twins, digital thread, virtual environments, simulation).
* Experience architecting IT software development environments and working across the systems engineering lifecycle.
* Degree in a relevant discipline (Computer Science / IT / Engineering / Maths/Stats or similar) plus architecture certifications such as TOGAF / ArchiMate / CISSP / cloud architecture.
Desirable / nice to have
* Microsoft Azure certification/experience
* SAFe / Agile delivery experience
* Exposure to CI/CD, DevSecOps
* Knowledge of Docker / Kubernetes
* Reporting/analytics tools (e.g., Power BI)
* Flight simulation / synthetic environments exposure
Salary description
£90.00 - £91.75 per hour