AI Enterprise Architect

Role: Enterprise AI Architect (Contract)
Location: UK, Remote
Day Rate: £650 per day (Outside IR35)
Contract Length: 5-month initial contract - likely extended to 12 months

The opportunity

Our client, an established UK technology business, is building the foundations for safe, rapid and well-governed AI use. They need an experienced Enterprise AI Architect to lead the AI architecture workstream of a major transformation programme, taking a draft design to an agreed, buildable architecture that engineers actually use.

The approach centres on a three-zone model (Ideas > Build > Run) and a managed AI gateway. You'll challenge it, strengthen it and see it into build, then hand over to an internal successor. This role suits someone confident enough to overturn inherited decisions when the evidence says so.

What you'll do

• Review the draft architecture and deliver a detailed multi-layer design, ending in a build specification
• Lead AI gateway evaluation and selection (options may include LiteLLM, Kong and Azure APIM)
• Design the request pipeline, environments and egress controls, and Entra ID identity, including agent identity
• Define supply-chain controls and model provider, residency and isolation strategy
• Build a permission-aware grounding approach so AI only sees data users are entitled to
• Own DLP and guardrail policy, the security control specification and the threat model
• Run use-case governance from idea to production: the register, release gates and approved tools
• Deliver reference patterns for priority initiatives, such as AI-assisted software delivery, ML routing and customer service agents
• Chair the Design Authority and Technical Design Review, and mentor your internal successor

What you'll bring

Essential

• Enterprise architecture and Zero Trust experience
• Deep knowledge of Entra ID and conditional access
• Egress and network controls in production
• LLM gateways, model routing and supply-chain controls

Desirable

• Running an LLM gateway in production
• RAG over governed data
• MCP security
• Enterprise security reviews
• Chairing design forums