Cloud Architect - Azure - Canterbury City Council : Job Details

Job Title: Cloud Architect

Location: Canterbury

Salary: £45,841 - £51,538 per annum

Job type: Full time, Permanent

Closing Date: 2nd March 2025

The IT team at Canterbury City Council are looking for a Cloud Architect to join them. Come and join a talented team committed to driving change with modern technology.

We've recently brought our ICT services inhouse after 15 years of having them outsourced as a shared service. This brings with it a fantastic opportunity to join a new team, committed to driving change with modern technology.

What's in it for you?

• A salary of £45,841 - £51,538 per annum
• Cost of living pay award negotiated annually as a salary increase
• Flexible, hybrid working - we understand the importance of a good work-life balance.
• We offer a generous annual leave entitlement! You'll receive 23 days annual leave which increase with service, plus bank holidays, PLUS 3 given days which are usually used over the Christmas period when our main offices are closed. You'll also have the option to buy more annual leave.
• We do not work on Bank Holidays.
• A fantastic local government pension scheme.
• We'll support and encourage your career by providing excellent opportunities for training and development, as well as cover your Professional Body Membership fees where essential to the role.
• Employee perks, including multiple retailer and lifestyle discounts to help you get the most out of your money and enjoy your free time.
• An easier commute: free use of Canterbury's Park and Ride, flexi bus tickets, reduced train season ticket loans, and a cycle to work scheme.
• Stay healthy: Access to free counselling, advice and webinars through our employee assistance programme, as well as contributions to the cost of Flu Jabs.

About this job:

Play a key role in the design, implementation and management of our Microsoft 365 and Azure cloud environment, including the migration of our on-premise estate.

Here's what you'll get up to:

• Design new cloud solutions including analysing requirements, identifying suitable Cloud products, prototyping, design and development of infrastructure artifacts, testing, implementation, and the preparation for ongoing support
• Ensure application performance, uptime, and scale, maintaining high standards of code quality and thoughtful design.
• Having regard to the security of operations and appropriate controls, assist in the planning, maintenance, and continuous improvement of the council's technical architecture.
• Define and document best practices and strategies regarding application deployment and infrastructure maintenance.
• Contribute to the planning and implementation of installation and maintenance work associated with the installation, including building, and configuring infrastructure components in virtualised environments.
• Participate in reviews of infrastructure performance, advise, and assist the team or service providers to plan amendments and other improvements to infrastructure and its operation.

Working pattern:

• Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays
• Full-Time (37 hours a week)
• Hybrid working - mixture of on-site and remote
• Contract type: Permanent

About you, the ideal Cloud Architect for the job:

Your knowledge:

• Practical working knowledge in a range of server, network, virtualisation and hosting technologies and can act as a technical advisor for operations and projects
• Strong practical knowledge of defining and architecting solutions based on Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure
• Excellent Technical knowledge of Microsoft Products including Azure Public Cloud architectures, Virtualisation, e.g., Azure Virtual Desktop and Cloud Security principles and practices
• Knowledge of managing and configuring enterprise-wide networks including LANs, WANs, WLANs, VPNs etc
• Strong knowledge of monitoring and reporting performance of systems, platforms and underlying infrastructure
• Strong knowledge of cloud networking concepts and how to design and implement networking components and the architectures available
• Knowledge of security and compliance laws and standards pertaining to relevant legislation (GDPR, PCI-DSS, ISO27000, PSN and Cyber Essentials).

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion at Canterbury City Council:

We are committed to promoting equality and diversity in everything we do. We provide a safe and welcoming environment where everyone is valued, included and respected.

Our diversity strengthens our ability to serve the diverse communities we support through our work.

To demonstrate this through our actions, all applications are anonymised for the shortlisting panel, allowing all applicants to be assessed on merit alone.

So, if this ICT opportunity in Canterbury looks right for you, please apply today! Simply click the Apply button and you will be redirected to the council's website to begin your application form.

Candidates with the experience or relevant job titles of; Infrastructure Engineer, DevOps Engineer, IT Field Service Engineer, System Administrator, System Lead, Azure Design, Cloud Virtualisation Architect, Cloud, Network Architect, Software Support, System Developer, Software Administrator, Software Architect, Lead Systems Support, Application Engineer may also be considered for this role.