AI Architect

AI Architect - GenAI - LLM - Azure Cloud - Contract - London

My client, a leading global consultancy, are looking for an AI Architect to define a strategic architecture roadmap for Gen AI-enabled application development across the EMEA region. This will be on a contract basis for 6 months plus extensions, with 2 days per week in London. Our client is looking at a pay rate of £700.00 per day (inside IR35).

Overview

Working with business and technology stakeholders to define a strategic architecture roadmap for Gen AI-enabled application development across the EMEA region.

Key Responsibilities

• Collaborate with business stakeholders to triage and prioritise AI use cases
• Support business teams in determining the optimal technical approach - Reuse vs Buy vs Build within the Gen AI landscape
• Conduct technical reviews of Gen AI-related project designs
• Guide development teams through Gen AI solution implementation, testing, and deployment
• Support the development of the Gen AI technology strategy in collaboration with the Technology Senior Management Team, tracking progress and providing accurate and regular status updates
• Work closely with Cloud and Cyber Security teams to enable secure, scalable and maintainable Gen AI solutions aligned with enterprise architecture standards
• Design solutions that meet stringent regulatory and security requirements
• Develop prompt engineering strategies and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines
• Monitor the evolving AI landscape and assess its applicability across the organisation
• Guide and mentor other team members, fostering technical excellence

Required Skills:

• Experience providing architectural solutions within a multi-entity, multi-regional financial services environment
• Proven experience working with senior stakeholders across business and technology functions
• Experience architecting Gen AI solutions across cloud platforms (Microsoft Azure, AWS, OCI, etc.)

• Strong understanding of Gen AI / LLM fundamentals, including prompt engineering, fine-tuning, model selection and cost optimisation
• Familiarity with Azure Cloud services supporting LLM deployments such as App Service, Azure Functions and Logic Apps
• Experience with Azure AI, data and related services including Azure OpenAI, Azure Cognitive Services, Azure AI Search, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Data Lake, Microsoft Purview, Power Platform and Microsoft Graph
• Expertise in LLM integration patterns such as MCP and A2A
• Experience architecting hybrid solutions combining on-premise and cloud systems within regulated environments
• Hands-on experience developing Gen AI solutions in Python using frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, Microsoft Agents SDK or similar
• Experience using GitHub Copilot or similar AI-assisted development tools