Senior Solution Architect - Transportation at Konvergent Ltd, Remote, 3 Months, £550-£600 per day

Senior Solution Architect required for a three month discovery assignment with a major UK transport group, working directly with the Head of Architecture in the coach division. Outside IR35, delivered via Statement of Work. Start ASAP.

THE ASSIGNMENT

The coach business bids for and delivers contracted coach services. A bespoke platform ingests bid data and supports the provision and management of those services. That platform has evolved organically over many years, no longer meets the needs of the business, and nobody currently holds a clear picture of the architecture.

Your job is to establish what exists, then define where the business needs to get to. The emphasis is firmly on the target state. The current state work is a means to an end, not the deliverable.

The open question you will answer: is the target a single platform, or a connected set of modern platforms integrated point to point?

WHAT YOU WILL DELIVER

1. Current state. A drains up review of the existing platform: what it does functionally, what the modules are and how they connect. High level only. This is not a deep technical build review.
2. Target state. The main focus. Where the business needs to be, and the shape of the solution that gets it there.
3. Capability model. A high level view of what the capability must be able to do.
4. Cost envelope. Required capabilities set against an indicative cost envelope.
5. Roadmap. The path from the Legacy platform to the target, shaping what the follow on project can realistically deliver.
6. Market engagement. Enough engagement with vendors and the market to inform and pressure test the target and the envelope.

The outcome is a client who can press the button on an RFP with confidence: a defined target, a capability set, a cost envelope and a roadmap.

Writing the business case is explicitly out of scope.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

A senior Solution Architect operating at the point where solution architecture becomes enterprise. You are comfortable moving from platform detail up to capability and roadmap, and back again.

Experience in the franchise transport sector is very highly preferred.

You can hold both sides at once: the technology architecture and the commercial go to market for the platform. The client does not want these split across two people.

You are credible in vendor and market engagement, and you shape scope rather than simply document it.

You are alert to vendor lock in, particularly how ERP vendors price and gate access to data, and to how AI is deployed within candidate platforms as a selection criterion.

Transport, mobility or logistics sector knowledge is a strong advantage.

Above all you are pragmatic and fast. Three months, focused on the end goal, not on producing perfect current state documentation.