Data Center Architect

Job title

Data Centre Architect

Work Location

Reading

Role type

Contract InsideIR35 6 months

Mode of working

Office Based

Any other working conditions

Escalation support during OOO hours

The Role

A Data Centre Architect is responsible for the end-to-end design, planning, and governance of data center infrastructure—including compute, storage, network, security, and facilities. The role ensures high availability, scalability, performance, and compliance while aligning with business and digital transformation goals (e.g., hybrid cloud, modernization).

A Data Centre Architect plays a strategic and technical leadership role, bridging infrastructure, cloud, and business needs. The position demands deep technical expertise along with the ability to design resilient, scalable, secure, and cost-efficient environments.

Your responsibilities

• DC Architecture & Strategy
• Define and own enterprise data center architecture roadmap
• Design scalable, secure, and highly available infrastructure
• Align on-prem and hybrid architecture with business strategy

• Platform Design & Engineering
• Architect: Windows & Linux platforms, VMware clusters and lifecycle management
• Define standards for: VM provisioning baseline configurations, Patch & vulnerability management

• Monitoring & Reliability Engineering
• Architect SCOM-based monitoring ecosystem
• Define proactive alerting strategy and noise reduction framework
• Enable observability across infrastructure stack

• Backup, DR & Cyber Resilience
• Design Rubrik backup policies and SLA tiers
• Implement: Immutable backup strategy failover/failback plans, Conduct DR drills and audits

• Transformation Program Leadership
• Lead large-scale DC transformation programs: Data center exit / consolidation, Legacy modernization
• Drive: Migration strategy & execution governance, Stakeholder alignment (Infra, Apps, Security), Risk mitigation & dependency handling
• Support: PoCs, pilots, large-scale rollout, hyper care
• Security & Compliance
• Embed Zero Trust and security-first design principles
• Ensure: Patch compliance, Vulnerability remediation, RBAC controls

• Performance & Cost Optimization
• Perform capacity planning
• Optimize: Resource utilization, Licensing (VMware, Windows), Infra costs across lifecycle

• Stakeholder & Vendor Management
• Engage with: Business units, Security & application teams
• Manage OEM/vendor interactions (VMware, Microsoft, Rubrik)

Your Profile

Essential skills/knowledge/experience

• Enterprise Data Centre Design
• Proven experience in designing scalable, high-availability data center architectures (Tier II–IV), including compute, storage, and networking layers.

• Hybrid & Cloud Integration
• Strong expertise in integrating on-premises infrastructure with public cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP), including hybrid and multi-cloud strategies.

• Virtualization & Containerization
• Deep knowledge of VMware, Hyper-V, or KVM along with container platforms like Kubernetes and Docker.

• Advanced Networking Architecture
• Expertise in LAN/WAN design, SDN, leaf-spine architecture, network segmentation, firewalls, and load balancing.

• Storage & Data Management
• Experience with SAN, NAS, object storage, backup/recovery, replication technologies, and data lifecycle management.

• Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity
• Strong experience in designing DR strategies, failover models, and defining RPO/RTO aligned with business SLAs.

• Security & Compliance Frameworks
• Knowledge of infrastructure security, zero-trust models, encryption, and compliance standards like ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, and regulatory requirements.
• Automation & Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
• Hands-on experience with automation tools such as Terraform, Ansible, PowerShell, or Python for provisioning and configuration.

• Capacity Planning & Performance Optimization
• Ability to forecast growth, optimize resource utilization, and implement performance tuning across infrastructure components.

• Vendor & Stakeholder Management
• Experience in evaluating vendors, leading RFPs/PoCs, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver architecture solutions.

Desirable skills/knowledge/experience

• Software-Defined Data Centre (SDDC)
• Exposure to SDDC technologies including VMware NSX, vSAN, and software-defined networking/storage.

• Edge Computing & Distributed DC Models
• Understanding of edge data center deployments and low-latency architecture designs.

• Green Data Centre Practices
• Knowledge of energy-efficient designs, carbon footprint reduction, and sustainability initiatives.

• AI/ML Infrastructure Awareness
• Familiarity with GPU-based infrastructure and high-performance computing (HPC) environments for AI workloads.

• Advanced Monitoring & Observability
• Experience with AIOps, predictive analytics, and advanced observability platforms (e.g., Dynatrace, AppDynamics).

• Regulatory & Industry-Specific Compliance
• Exposure to domain-specific regulations (e.g., BFSI, healthcare) and data residency requirements.

• Migration & Transformation Programs
• Experience in large-scale DC consolidation, relocation, or cloud migration initiatives.

• Financial Management / FinOps
• Understanding of cost governance models for infrastructure and hybrid cloud environments.

• DevSecOps Integration
• Familiarity with embedding security into DevOps pipelines and infrastructure provisioning workflows.
• Emerging Technologies Awareness
• Awareness of trends such as composable infrastructure, serverless, quantum computing impact, and next-gen networking (5G integration).