Principal Digital Specialist Applications Architect
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Job Summary
Together we are Trusted to Serve Scotland.
Principal Digital Specialist - Applications Architect
Shape the Future of Scottish Waters Application Landscape
Scottish Water is modernising how we design build and run the applications that support our people customers and operations across the country and we are looking for a talented and forward-thinking Applications Architect to lead the reinvention of our Line of Business and custom application estate. This role sits within the Digital Strategy Architecture & Platforms function and reports directly to the Digital Architecture Manager. You will take ownership of our applications roadmap champion modern engineering practices and ensure that new and existing applications are secure scalable maintainable and future ready.
About the role
As Applications Architect you will drive the transformation of our diverse application landscape spanning major Line of Business systems services and Power Platform solutions. You will work closely with Cloud Architecture Enterprise Architecture Cyber Security Platforms and business stakeholders to ensure alignment with strategic roadmaps and Scottish Waters digital ambitions. This opportunity is ideal for an engineer or tech lead who is ready to step into architecture and influence technology direction across a national organisation.
What youll be doing
In this role you will reinvent our Line of Business application estate using modern engineering and architectural approaches while defining application standards patterns and principles that support consistency quality and long-term maintainability. You will collaborate closely with Digital Innovation teams to mentor coach and upskill developers into engineers and promote best practice across CI/CD code quality testing secure development and cloudready design. Alongside this you will work with the Enterprise Architecture team to shape application strategy lifecycle plans and future roadmaps ensuring solutions align with cloud architecture principles and contribute to wider digital transformation goals.
You will also provide architectural oversight for the refresh of major Line of Business applications working with Cloud Architects to ensure solutions meet standards for security scalability resilience and operational support. A key element of the role is championing security by design and modern cloud patterns including APIs microservices eventdriven design and the use of serverless technologies where appropriate. Partnering with business teams you will design modern tools and applications that simplify work improve experiences and deliver real-world value for Scottish Water staff.
What youll bring
To be successful you will bring strong experience development ideally with exposure to solution design and a solid understanding of modern application architecture covering APIs integration patterns cloudnative development DevOps code quality and secure engineering. You will have a passion for mentoring developers and building highperforming engineering capability along with the ability to influence technical direction build strong relationships and communicate clearly with both technical and nontechnical stakeholders. Curiosity creativity and a continuous improvement mindset will also be important. Experience with Azure Power Platform Line of Business system modernisation or working in a regulated environment would be advantageous but is not essential.
You will join a collaborative and futurefocused digital organisation with the opportunity to make a tangible impact on how Scottish Water builds and supports applications across the business. You will help shape modern engineering culture uplift capability and deliver tools that support thousands of colleagues across Scotland.
Looking out for you
While the work we do is important we know its not the only thing that matters. Thats why we make sure you have everything you need to find a good work-life balance.
Youll get plenty of time to recharge with 38 days of holiday every year (including public holidays). And you can even buy five more if you need a little extra time. You can also take paid time off to volunteer in your community.
When it comes to major life events we have family-friendly policies around adoption maternity and parental leave. And for the everyday We embrace flexible working.
For your future theres our pension (the know-what-youll-get-when-you-retire kind) as well as life assurance.
As for some nice extras You can expect an annual company bonus. Not to mention access to SW Splash handy rewards that can save you money on holidays bills and shopping.
The not-so-small print
This role will be a Grade 8. If youre new to Scottish Water youll join us on a starting salary of 54776. Performance-driven pay progression would then allow you to move through the range to a maximum of 74386.
If youre interested in this role or know someone else who might be - well be accepting applications until midnight on the 15th April 2026.
We operate Balanced Hybrid working at Scottish Water and we encourage people to work half their time in a Scottish Water location.
Job offers at Scottish Water are conditional and will be confirmed on completion of our pre-employment screening e.g. referencing criminal record checks license checks etc. Screening is conducted on our behalf by a third party and must be completed before your start date. Dont worry - well only start these checks once youve accepted an offer.
A few final things worth knowing
Research shows that some people avoid applying for jobs unless they can meet every single criteria. If youre interested in this job but dont tick all the boxes apply anyway! We hardly ever hire people who can do every part of a job from Day One. Everyone has a learning curve. So dont rule yourself out!
Let us know if there are any changes we can make to our recruitment process to help you perform at your best. Lots of our people have disabilities or neurodiverse conditions (including some of our recruiters!). Were also aware that some people might be experiencing temporary challenges because of life events like menopause. Were very used to making adjustments so please dont be afraid to ask.
As part of our commitment to developing a flourishing Scotland its important that all our employees are Scottish taxpayers. If you join us your home address will need to be in Scotland. If you dont already live here youll need to commit to moving here within your first three months.
Please note Scottish Water takes the safety health and wellbeing of our employees colleagues and customers very seriously and as such you may be subject to Drug & Alcohol testing in line with our policy.
Finally (finally!) candidates who havent submitted an application in the last 12 months will have their records removed from our recruitment database. You wont need to do anything. Your data will be automatically deleted.
Required Experience:
Staff IC
