AI Architect

Senior AI Architect - Financial Services London, UK (Hybrid Working Model) Initial 6-Month Engagement £650-£700 per day (Inside IR35) The Opportunity Our client, a leading organisation within the financial services sector, is undertaking a strategic transformation to embed Artificial Intelligence at enterprise scale.

They are seeking a Senior AI Architect to play a pivotal role in shaping, delivering, and-critically-driving the adoption of production-grade AI solutions across the business.

This mandate goes beyond innovation and experimentation. The organisation requires a leader who can translate AI ambition into live, trusted, and widely adopted capabilities, ensuring measurable business impact.

A key priority is addressing a common industry challenge

transitioning AI initiatives from proof-of-concept into fully operational, value-generating products. Key ResponsibilitiesAI Strategy & Architecture

Define and lead the end-to-end AI architecture, encompassing

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)

Large Language Model (LLM) integration and orchestration

Agent-based workflows and services

Establish scalable, secure, and reusable AI design patterns aligned to enterprise standards

Product-Focused Delivery

Lead the delivery of production-ready AI solutions, ensuring initiatives

Progress beyond PoC and governance bottlenecks

Are deployed into live environments

Achieve sustained user adoption

Embed a product-centric mindset, with clear ownership of outcomes and value realisation

AI Platform Engineering

Oversee the design and implementation of advanced AI capabilities, including

RAG pipelines integrating enterprise data sources (e.g., Teams, SharePoint)

Agent-driven applications interfacing with internal and legacy systems

Text-to-SQL solutions enabling natural language interaction with business data

Enable robust deployment through CI/CD-integrated pipelines, including automated workflows within platforms such as Databricks

Technology Leadership (Microsoft Ecosystem)

Operate within a Microsoft-centric technology landscape, including

Azure OpenAI

Azure AI Search

Azure Databricks

Azure AI Foundry

Microsoft Fabric

Define integration standards across AI, data, and enterprise platforms

Adoption, Influence & Investment

Act as a trusted advisor to senior leadership and C-suite stakeholders

Clearly articulate AI value across

Commercial impact

Operational efficiency

Risk mitigation

Drive enterprise adoption and influence stakeholders to

Build confidence in AI solutions

Unlock and allocate budgets for AI initiatives

Navigate complex stakeholder environments, including resistance to AI investment

Governance & Risk

Ensure all AI solutions adhere to financial services regulatory frameworks, including:

Data privacy and security

Model governance and auditability

Bias mitigation and explainability

Design AI systems suitable for sensitive use cases, such as credit risk, regulatory reporting, and financial data services

Candidate ProfileSector Expertise

Demonstrated experience within banking or regulated financial services environments

Strong understanding of regulatory, risk, and governance frameworks

AI & Engineering Capability

Proven track record delivering production AI systems, including

RAG-based knowledge and document intelligence platforms

Natural language data access (e.g., Text-to-SQL)

AI-powered assistants and agent frameworks

Experience delivering solutions such as

Pipelines ingesting collaboration and enterprise content into vectorised indexes

Agent-based front ends for interacting with internal systems

AI solutions supporting regulatory, risk, or financial reporting functions

Technical Expertise

Hands-on expertise across

Azure AI ecosystem (Azure OpenAI, AI Search, Databricks, Foundry)

CI/CD-driven AI deployment and pipeline automation

API-led and distributed architectures

Leadership & Influence

Strong communication skills with the ability to

Engage and influence senior stakeholders

Translate technical concepts into business-relevant outcomes

Demonstrated ability to drive adoption, not just delivery

Why This Role This engagement offers a rare opportunity to shape how AI is operationalised at scale within a leading financial institution.

The successful candidate will combine deep technical expertise, delivery credibility, and executive influence to ensure AI becomes a core, trusted capability embedded within the organisation.

We welcome conversations with individuals who have a proven track record of delivering AI solutions that are not only technically robust, but actively used, trusted, and delivering measurable value.