Vacancy description
Key Information
- Division:Digital Technology
- Location:National Football Centre, St George's Park
- Vacancy Type:Full-time, Permanent
- Closing Date:15 May 2025
Set the bar for greatness...
The FA are excited to be searching for a Solutions Architect. This role provides a unique opportunity to support England teams in their pursuit of success at major tournaments, as a key member of the England Performance Technology team, within Digital Technology.
Working as part of the Digital Technology (DT) division, you will be responsible for specifying and overseeing the solution architecture and design for digital products within our England Performance Technology Team. As a Solution Architect, you will be responsible for ensuring that onshore and offshore technical teams understand the solution architecture and have a suitable framework in which to develop solutions within an Agile delivery framework.
You will work as part of the Solution Architecture Practice and closely with the Enterprise Architecture team to align and assure designs, technical roadmaps, software, quality and on the evaluation, selection and implementation of suitable Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) products as required. This will be achieved through the design and implementation of robust, scalable solutions that integrate and transform data from a variety of sources to drive the England teams forward.
Your mission will be to architect high-quality, future-ready technology solutions that serve coaches, analysts, and key stakeholders across our elite sports teams. You will play a pivotal role in shaping the application platform that underpins our performance workflows, ensuring it is reliable, efficient, and scalable. You will be responsible for ensuring that we apply modern cloud-based architectural patterns and work closely with engineering and enterprise architecture teams to help ensure optimal data delivery, system integration, and user experience designs, all while enabling a single point of truth for critical decision-making.
Working with the FA's core Helix platform solution, providing high-quality resources to support elite sports teams on the global stage. In this role, you will be expected to champion architectural best practice; lead by example in technical excellence; and support the continuous improvement of our platforms. Working in a fast-paced Agile setting, you will help embed a culture of adaptability and innovation, ensuring our data and technology solutions empower strategic, data-driven decisions across elite sport.
The contractual location of the role is based at St. George's Park in Burton-Upon-Trent, however, the in-office days will be flexible. You will be expected to travel to the contractual location based on the needs of the team and the business.
What will you be doing?
Enable Solution Architecture Advisory Services:
- Lead on solution design of architectures, systems & applications, with a strong preference towards Google Cloud.
- Lead and collaborate with the development team to ensure they follow the agreed solution architecture throughout the software development lifecycle. Participating in code reviews, technical planning, and sprint ceremonies.
- Ensure that designs align with Enterprise Architecture and Product direction, ensuring that designs meet all functional and non-functional requirements.
- Proactively keep up to date with the latest developments in identity improvement opportunities for The FA based on technical knowledge and industry trends.
- Actively participate in the development and continuous improvement to help develop solution architecture as a practice.
Enable Solution Architecture Assurance Services:
- Enable the technology strategic and product alignment within the England Performance Technology Team (WIN POD), by assuring the deliveries to the DT Leadership team's technology roadmap, FA business strategy and enterprise architecture strategic blueprint.
- Define the governance of solution architecture, ensuring traceability between design decisions, standards, and business value.
- Develop and maintain technical standards and best practices, leveraging industry standards and continually improving processes and techniques to help the performance and maintainability of applications.
Enable Solution Architecture Delivery Services:
- Work with Product and Delivery to shape epics and features early in the lifecycle, ensuring feasibility, cost effectiveness and strategic alignment.
- Deliver and oversee solution architecture documentation, ensuring it is kept up to date, clear and complete within the Enterprise Architecture Tooling (LeanIX) and the relevant project documents.
- Enable integrations across Google Cloud and third-party COTS packages & solutions.
- Lead and collaborate with third-party technical staff, including offshore teams, to ensure that development teams follow the agreed solution architecture.
Other:
- Executes additional tasks as required to meet the FA's changing priorities.
- Comply with all company policies and procedures to ensure that the highest standards of health, safety, and well-being can be maintained.
- As part of the FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.
What are we looking for?
Essential for the role:
- Solution Architecture Certified or Degree educated or 10+ years in role, Solution Architecture experience.
- Extensive experience as a Solution Architect.
- Extensive experience providing solution architecture on cloud platforms.
- Experience in designing mobile and web applications.
- Experience in Agile delivery methodology, especially Scrum.
- Strong problem-solving skills.
- Effective communication skills and the ability to explain technical concepts to a non-technical audience.
Beneficial to have:
- Solutions Architect Expert certification (on cloud platform).
- Prior technology lead and 3-5 years of developer experience.
- Experience in designing/developing solutions on the Google Cloud and integrations with other cloud stacks.
- Working knowledge of sports or football systems.
- Technology experience within Football or other sporting associations/stadiums.
- Knowledge of integration design patterns.
- Experience of working with offshore teams.
- Knowledge of common enterprise software design patterns.
- Knowledge and understanding of DevOps and Development best practices.
What's in it for you?
We are committed to ensuring everyone can flourish in their roles, to achieve this we have unique office spaces under the arch of the iconic Wembley National Stadium, which is the home of English Football. We are also delighted to offer a world-class, Elite Performance Centre, St. George's Park in Staffordshire which is an exceptional setting to develop and inspire high-performing England teams and leaders.
We pride ourselves in offering a competitive salary as well as great opportunities to develop and grow in your role. But that is not all; we also have a range of exciting benefits, some of which can be found below:
- Access to event day tickets at Wembley Stadium, alongside a host of regular internal events throughout the season, encouraging you to connect and learn with your colleagues and look after your mental health and well-being.
- Free, nutritious lunches at Wembley Stadium and St. George's Park.
- Free private medical cover.
- A contributory pension scheme.
- An additional 'Thank You' days leave, volunteering days as well as 25 days annual leave (based on a full-time, permanent contract.)
- A hybrid working model which offers greater flexibility.
For more information on what it is like to work at The FA, please visit our FA Careers page, https://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/careers
We are a diverse workplace, aspiring to represent football across the country. The Football Association actively promotes inclusion and diversity, encouraging you to be the best version of yourself at work.
We welcome applications from everyone and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. If you have any particular requirements in respect of the recruitment or interview process, please mention this during your application.
As part of the FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.
ABOUT US
The Football Association [The FA] is the not-for-profit governing body of football in England. It is responsible for promoting and developing every level of the game, from grassroots through to the professional game, and generates significant revenue to support investment into English football each year.
The FA oversees England international teams across men’s, women’s, youth and disability football, as well as running the National League System and FA Competitions including the Emirates FA Cup, and Women’s Adobe FA Cup, and the world-class facilities of Wembley Stadium and St. George’s Park, all with a purpose to inspire positive change through football.
Our game can tackle some of society’s core challenges. It can bring communities together, nationally and locally. It can be a platform for inclusion, ensuring there is a place for all. It can get people active and promote wellbeing often at a time when we need it most. With UEFA EURO 2028 – hosted in the UK and Ireland – on the horizon, we have an incredible opportunity to transform football across the country.
Now is the time to inspire positive change.
We currently work within a hybrid working model whereby the expectation is to work from your contractual location for part of the week, and as and when required by the team. The remaining days can be worked remotely. We will continue to monitor this model, and it may be adjusted in future if deemed necessary.
Your contract with The FA will specify a fixed location of Wembley Stadium or St. George’s Park unless the role is advertised as a homebased contract. The contractual location of this role can be found at the top of this advert on our FA vacancy page.
THE PROCESS
We believe that assessment and selection should be robust, fair, and inclusive.
Following receipt of your application and the closing of the application process, you can expect a period of circa two weeks for us to thoroughly screen and shortlist, ahead of any next stage and interview.
Please note, we receive a high volume of applications so this can vary but we ensure that our assessor panel reviews all applications, and no use of automated screening or AI is used.
At an interview, we want to ensure that we see the best of you as an individual and increase our understanding of your skills and experience relevant to the demands of the role. It is very much a two-way process with importance placed on the candidate experience so that regardless of outcome, you feel valued, and treated fairly and hopefully have a positive experience.
No process is ever the same, but we would like to create an environment that is welcoming and ensures the experience is as enjoyable as possible.
We tailor our assessment and selection depending on the nature and demands of the role. The FA Resourcing Team will provide you with as much notice as possible about the process and the format of any interview will always be communicated to you in advance, including what to expect on the day and who you will be seeing.
We often receive a high volume of applications, and for certain roles, we will supplement your application, utilising our on-demand video interviewing platform. On-demand video interviews enable you to answer preset questions, in the comfort of your own home or office setting and at a convenient time for you, giving us greater insight into you as an individual and the skills and experience you might bring to the role and working at The FA.
We also utilise Microsoft Teams for virtual interviews and of course host you at our world class venues, Wembley Stadium and our National Football Centre, St. George’s Park.
GROUP STRATEGY
WE HAVE MOVED FOOTBALL FORWARD.
From 2020 - 2024, we have – in collaboration with our key partners – been able to deliver meaningful change across the game.
From winning our first major tournament in over 50 years to delivering thousands of high-quality pitches to the grassroots game.
BUT WE CAN’T STOP NOW - AND WE WON’T.
This new strategy is about doubling down. Our game can tackle some of society’s core challenges. It can bring communities together, nationally and locally.
It can be a platform for inclusion, ensuring there is a place for all. It can get people active and promote wellbeing often at a time when we need it most.
With UEFA EURO 2028 – hosted in the UK and Ireland – on the horizon, we have an incredible opportunity to transform football across the country.
NOW IS THE TIME TO INSPIRE POSITIVE CHANGE.
Our ultimate purpose is to ‘Inspire positive change through football’ – everything we do ultimately ladders up to this end goal.
The 2024-2028 strategy focuses on tackling four long-term strategic challenges that will fulfil this purpose and drive real change across the game, our ‘Game Changer’ objectives.
Underpinning these Game Changers are then four activities and approaches that will enable us to meet challenges head on, our ‘Drivers’.
EDI STRATEGY
Our equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategy forms an integral part of our long-term commitment to using our influence across English football to create a game free from discrimination.
A GAME FREE FROM DISCRIMINATION
Our 2024 – 2028 strategy outlines three fundamental pillars for delivering a game free from discrimination – Boosting Representation, Driving Inclusion and Tackling Discrimination.
These pillars ensure that our work uniting communities, improving lives, and inspiring positive change on and off the pitch will remain a core priority for English football for years to come.
We are a diverse workplace, aspiring to represent football across the country. The FA actively promotes inclusion and diversity, encouraging you to be the best version of yourself at work.
We welcome applications from everyone and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. If you have any particular requirements in respect of the recruitment or interview process, please mention this during your application.
As part of The FA’s commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.
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