About Atkins and ADS&T
Atkins, a member of the SNC Lavalin Group, is a world recognised global, multidisciplinary consultancy business. Within our UK regional business, we have a division dedicated to providing consultancy services to the Aerospace, Defence, Security and Technology (ADS&T) markets, serving key accounts across Central and Local Government, Public Services, Regulated Industries, blue light services as well as the Private Sector.
Within ADS&T, Atkins has built a team of consultants that deliver management consultancy and client-side consulting in the business and digital transformation space. Their focus is primarily digital programme and project delivery, technology enabled transformation, strategy, architecture development and business change integration.
About our Business & Digital Consulting practice
This team is in great demand and consequently we are experiencing rapid growth, with particularly strong demand in our defence, security and government markets. This success is built on a track record of excellence in consultancy and delivery to a wide range of clients, which includes some of the largest public and private sector clients in the UK.
Your Role in Our Ambition
Many organisations today have invested heavily in large, monolithic, long-term ICT services contracts that have often locked them into proprietary, inflexible delivery models and commercial arrangements. One consequence of this has been that over recent years these organisations have become less able to respond to the disruption of the digital era and the increasing pace, volatility, variety and scale of change that is now an everyday way of life in today’s business environment.
In response, organisations are now turning away from these legacy ways of working and are bringing key functions like technology strategy, architecture and design closer to their in-house teams and core operations. This allows them to regain control of their technology roadmaps, increase agility and responsiveness, delivering technology faster, better and cheaper. As such, there is now a very high level of demand for architecture consultancy in our markets and Atkins are responding to this exciting opportunity
On the back of significant new business recently won in these areas, we are substantially growing our architecture consulting capability and skills portfolio, and , we are looking to significantly expand the scope and scale of our capability in Solutions Architecture. In addition to delivering outstanding client work, the successful candidate will take a key role in supporting the growth and development our Solutions Architecture capability in this time of exceptional opportunity
The Candidate
This role will involve a blend of client-facing consulting, architectural design and technical assurance services, proposition development, thought leadership and business / sales development activities. As such, we are looking for technical influencers, who are comfortable operating in fluid and uncertain environments. This requires the successful candidate to be an experienced professional, with a proven track record of high-quality delivery within a customer focused, demanding and complex consulting environment.
The ideal candidate will demonstrate deep technical insight and will be fluent in contemporary, Digital technologies, such as Big Data & Analytics, Cloud, microservices, mobility, virtualisation & containerisation, IoT & converged infrastructure architectures. In return, Atkins offers the successful candidate significant development opportunities arising through working in an expanding team, delivering services within some of the most complex and rewarding environments.
Skills Required
The new Digital-age operating model is technically and commercially complex and clients need our help to move into the future whilst keeping business as usual and wider change programmes running efficiently. To succeed, our customers require expert advisors who listen actively and advise clearly, exercising deep experience and mature methods. In this role, “soft skills” strong stakeholder communication & influencing ability is as equally important as technical knowledge and architecture skills.
Prospective candidates should be able to demonstrate core consulting competencies & specialist discipline experience. The key qualities we are looking for are:
General Skills
• An Information & Technology background with relevant experience in a technical and/or consulting environment.
• An understanding of System Lifecycle Management including Concept through to Sourcing, Design, Build, Test, Deployment and Disposal Management.
• Demonstrable experience in Requirements Definition and Management, calling out options, considerations & priorities which require a business decision.
• A strong interest and appreciation of technology trends and government IT strategy, such as, Cloud, Internet of Things, Cyber Security, Big Data and/or Digital Services.
• Experience of working with and collaborating across Technical and Project work streams to drive results.
• Experience of transitioning knowledge and deliverables to up-skill internal teams.
• Good general consulting skills (structured thinking, effective report writing and presentations, and strong stakeholder engagement).
• Excellent oral and written communication skills with the ability to influence effectively across multiple mediums.
• A good first degree in a science, computing or engineering subject.
• A high-level of self-initiation, organisation and enthusiasm.
• Personable team player, able to work under guidance and own initiative, adding expertise and value to project deliverables.
• Excellent stakeholder management experience with focus on nurturing & developing strong relationships.
Architecture Methods & Tools
• Experience of information systems design and delivery, applying Systems Engineering and/or Solutions Architecture development methods and tools appropriately.
• An understanding of a range of architecture and engineering approaches, the factors involved in choosing the right approach and when and how they might be tailored
• Experience in the design of high-level structures to enable and guide the design and development of integrated mixed-technology solutions that meet current and future business needs.
• The knowledge required to ensure the development of and modifications to solution components are appropriately considered. (e.g. relevant architectures, strategies, policies, standards and practices (including security), ensuring that existing and planned solution components remain compatible.).
• Experience of System Development Testing Strategies, including management of full test & release lifecycles.
• A solid understanding of how the execution of Systems Engineering and Solution Architecture activities relate to programme/project management and Business Change.
• Articulates necessary changes to technology components, services, processes, organisational structures, and operating models.
• Architectural modelling skills using UML, BPMN, ArchiMate 3.0 & Enterprise Architecture tooling such as Aris, Archi, BizzDesign, Sparx Enterprise Architect & MooD.
• Understanding of and experience with the use of enterprise architecture frameworks such as TOGAF, Zachman and the ITIL & IT4IT service architecture frameworks.
• Knowledge of EASE and MODAF & NAF frameworks.
• Knowledge and experience of business analysis techniques and approaches.
Delivery Methods & Industry Experience
• Appreciation of Agile development methodologies including DSDM & SCRUM, DevOps & continuous methods.
• Experience of working within traditional & Agile delivery, such as using sprints, scrums, retrospectives, and backlogs.
• Experience working with Central Government, particularly in the Defence or Security and Intelligence sectors and experience across Base/Fixed systems, working to Defence ICT policies, including JSP 604 is highly desirable.
• Experience working in other business sectors such as Local Government; Regulated Industry (Utilities & Transportation) and/or private sector.
Solution Architecture Skills
Demonstrable specialisms in one or more areas including:
• Application Development (n-tier, Java, JavaScript, .Net etc)
• Application Integration (ESB, EAI, SOA)
• Traditional Infrastructure (Compute & Storage)
• High Performance Computing
• Hyper Scale Cloud Computing (AWS, Azure, GCloud, OpenStack)
• Enterprise Storage
• Hyper convergence
• Mobile workforce (MDM, Mobile Applications)
• End User Compute (Desktop & Laptop hardware, software & management)
• Desktop, Application & Server Virtualisation & Containerisation (Citrix, VMWare, Microsoft etc.)
• Security products (IDS/IPS & endpoint security)
• Identity management, authentication & authorisation (IDAM, RBAC, ABAC, GRC)
• Network & telecoms (WAN/LAN)
• microservices & Service Oriented Architectures (SOAP, WSDL, REST, THRIFT etc)
• etc.
Security
This role may require security clearance and offers of employment will be dependent on obtaining the relevant level of clearance. If this is necessary it will be discussed with you at interview.
If applying to this role please do not make reference to (in conversation) or include in your application or CV, details of any current or previously held security clearance.
Training
Atkins develops individuals through a portfolio of training and development activities designed to help you make the best of your abilities and talents. These are reviewed with individuals through an annual appraisal process. We actively support staff in achieving corporate membership of relevant institutions.
Rewards and Benefits
We offer an attractive package of rewards and benefits. Please refer to our website for details of our full benefits package
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