Solution Architect – Advice & Marketing

At M&G, our purpose is to give everyone real confidence to put their money to work. With a heritage dating back more than 175 years, we have a long history of innovation in savings and investments, combining asset management and insurance expertise to offer a wide range of solutions.
Our two distinct operating segments, Asset Management and Life, work together to provide access to balanced, long-term investment and savings solutions.
Through telling it like it is, owning it now and moving it forward together with care and integrity; we are creating an exceptional place to work for exceptional talent.
We will consider flexible working arrangements for any of our roles and offer workplace adjustments to ensure you have the support you need to succeed in your role.

Department and team: Technology – Enterprise Architecture (Life Architecture)
Management level: Manager / Expert
Reports to: Head of IT Architecture, Life

The Role

A new opportunity has arisen for a Solution Architect within the M&G Enterprise Architecture team. The successful candidate will work across the Life portfolio, with direct responsibility for Advice and Marketing.

You will translate business and technology requirements into clear, pragmatic end-to-end solution architectures spanning customer and colleague experience, applications, integration, data, AI, security and infrastructure. You will ensure solutions align with M&G’s wider Enterprise Architecture, architecture principles and standards.

The role is business-facing and delivery-focused. You will work with business stakeholders, Enterprise and Solution Architects, product managers, technology teams, delivery teams and third parties to shape solutions, evaluate options and trade-offs, make clear recommendations and provide architectural assurance throughout delivery.

While this role is focused on Advice and Marketing, it is fundamentally a Solution Architecture role. Experience within Advice, Wealth, Marketing or related customer-facing financial services would therefore be particularly valuable.

Key Work Level Accountabilities

Accountable for delivering expert advice or service, using specialist knowledge and Solution Architect – Advice & Marketing

• subject matter expertise.
• Applies judgement to deliver outcomes, evaluating a range of potential solutions and considering the impact for customers, cost and risk.
• Manages conflicts that may impact delivery.
• Challenges upwards based on knowledge of delivery, complex systems and the broader picture.
• Identifies and anticipates opportunities to continuously improve quality and efficiency.

• Manages resources and risks using expert judgement, know-how and experience.

Key Responsibilities

• Solution architecture: Develop, maintain and communicate end-to-end solution architectures that translate business requirements into pragmatic technology solutions.
• Roadmaps: Define target-state views, transition architectures and delivery roadmaps for assigned areas of change.
• Options and recommendations: Assess build, buy and reuse options, including third-party solutions, and make clear recommendations balancing business value, cost, risk and future flexibility.
• Architecture alignment: Ensure proposed solutions align with M&G’s wider Enterprise Architecture, principles, standards and agreed patterns.
• Design assurance: Work with delivery teams to ensure detailed design and implementation remain consistent with the agreed solution architecture.
• Technology guidance: Provide pragmatic technology and architecture advice to business, product, change and IT stakeholders.
• Data and integration: Design solutions that make appropriate use of governed data, reusable data products and integration patterns.
• AI and emerging technology: Identify appropriate opportunities to apply AI and other technologies, using M&G-approved approaches and appropriate governance and controls.
• Security and resilience: Ensure solutions consider security, identity and access, privacy, third-party risk and operational resilience requirements.
• Governance: Present and defend designs through the appropriate architecture and design governance forums and provide assurance through delivery.
• Simplification and modernisation: Identify opportunities to simplify the technology estate, reduce duplication, modernise legacy technology and improve reuse.

• Standards and reuse: Contribute to and promote common architecture frameworks, standards, reference architectures, patterns and practices.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

Essential

• Proven experience as a Solution Architect within a complex organisation, ideally financial services or another regulated environment.
• Experience designing end-to-end solutions across applications, integration, data, security, digital and cloud technologies.
• Experience designing solutions using SaaS, COTS and cloud services.
• Knowledge of modern integration approaches.
• Ability to structure complex or ambiguous problems and turn them into clear architectural choices and recommendations.
• Experience assessing technology and vendor options and balancing business value, cost, risk, reuse and future flexibility.
• Experience supporting detailed design and delivery against an agreed solution architecture.
• Understanding of security, privacy, resilience and identity considerations within solution design.
• Experience of architecture governance, design assurance and presenting architecture to business and technology stakeholders.
• Knowledge of architecture methods, modelling approaches and design tooling.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to influence senior business, technology and third-party stakeholders.

• Pragmatic and delivery-focused, adapting the depth of architecture to the scale and complexity of the problem.

Desirable

Experience in one or more of the following would be advantageous:

• Financial Services products and services.
• Financial Advice, Wealth Management or customer-facing financial services.
• Adviser and customer journeys, adviser CRM and back-office capabilities.
• Marketing technology, digital experience, content and campaign management.
• Salesforce and its wider ecosystem, including Experience Cloud, Data Cloud and Agentforce.
• Adobe Experience Cloud, including AEM, Marketo, Assets, Analytics and Target.
• Customer data platforms, audience activation and personalisation.
• Enterprise data platforms and reusable data products.
• AI-enabled solutions and associated governance and human oversight.
• Legacy technology modernisation, rationalisation and migration.
• Multi-vendor and third-party integration.
• Agile or product-based delivery approaches.

• Relevant regulatory considerations affecting Advice and Marketing, including financial promotions, consent, privacy and use of customer data.

Ways of Working

• Pragmatic, outcome-focused and collaborative.
• Comfortable working across business, architecture, technology and delivery teams.
• Able to navigate ambiguity and bring structure and clarity to complex problems.
• Comfortable constructively challenging stakeholders and suppliers where appropriate.
• Focused on enabling successful delivery rather than creating unnecessary process or documentation.

• Looks beyond individual projects to identify opportunities for simplification, standardisation and reuse.

What we offer:

We’re dedicated to supporting your wellbeing and helping you thrive, both at work and beyond. Our benefits are designed to help you balance your professional and personal life, and financially plan for the future. Our UK benefits include:

• A valuable pension scheme of up to 18% (13% made up of employer contributions and 5% employee contributions).
• Access to our Share Save and Share Incentive Plan, alongside financial wellbeing and support services to help give you real confidence to put your money to work.
• Enjoy 38 days annual leave (including bank holidays), with the opportunity to purchase up to five extra days. Our Time Off When You Need It policy gives you the flexibility - to balance work and personal commitments.
• Our market-leading Inspiring Families policy includes comprehensive support and paid parental leave covering maternity, adoption, surrogacy, and paternity leave - because supporting families is an important part of our inclusive culture.
• Health & Protection cover includes Private Healthcare, Critical Illness cover and Life Assurance for you, with additional family options - for peace of mind.

To explore more about life at M&G and our full benefits offering, visit Life at M&G

At M&G we strive to have a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture, underpinned by our policies and employee-led networks that offer networking, support and development opportunities for the diverse communities our colleagues represent. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds – across gender, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation and more – including neurodivergent individuals, career returners and those with military service experience.

M&G is proud to be Level 3: Disability Confident Leader under the UK Government Disability Confident employer scheme, and we welcome applications from candidates with disabilities and long-term health conditions. If you would like to participate in the initiative, you will have the opportunity to indicate this on your application.