Executive Profile
Senior technology leader with 30+ years of experience spanning hands-on software engineering, enterprise and solution architecture, and Director-level leadership. Proven track record designing and delivering secure, cloud-native platforms at national scale while building and leading high-performing engineering organisations. Known for combining deep technical credibility with pragmatic leadership, operating comfortably from code and architecture reviews through to executive governance and board-level discussion.
Leadership & Technical Capabilities
- Technology & Engineering Strategy: defining vision, roadmaps, AI and data roadmaps, and operating models aligned to business outcomes
- Architecture Leadership: enterprise, solution, and platform architecture across Azure and AWS estates
- Hands-on Technical Depth: microservices, APIs, event-driven systems, data integration, and distributed systems
- Security & Risk: IAM, PIM, WAF, OWASP, threat modelling, and secure-by-design delivery
- Cloud Platforms: Azure & AWS, Cloudflare PaaS/IaaS, networking, identity, resilience, and observability
- DevOps & Delivery: CI/CD, infrastructure as code, reliability engineering, and developer enablement
- Engineering Leadership: org design, hiring, mentoring, performance management, and succession planning
- Governance & Assurance: design authorities, architecture reviews, GDS-aligned assurance, and audit support
- Commercial & Stakeholder Engagement: executive communication, supplier management, and bid support
Selected Programmes & Transformations
- Department for Education (DfE): Principal Architect and Head of Engineering across multiple Azure-hosted national services; responsible for target architectures, security posture, delivery assurance, and operational resilience.
- Comparethemarket – Pricing Platform: Lead Architect for a multi-year programme decomposing a high-traffic on-premises monolith into AWS-hosted microservices — serving a platform used by over 7 million customers and generating in excess of £700m annual revenue for BGL Group. Enabled daily deployments, materially improved platform resilience, and reduced operational cost by ~25%.
- Real-time Quotability & Partner Risk Monitoring: Designed event-driven services and observability tooling to protect revenue integrity across a platform handling millions of insurance quote requests per year — reducing incident detection and recovery from days to minutes.
- Bid Management Platform (2025/26): Designed and launched a secure bid-management SaaS on Azure using Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, App Services, Functions, Service Bus, Storage, SQL Database, Key Vault, and Application Insights for real-time scoring, search, and governance.
Technical Skills & Tooling
Detailed, resource-level experience across cloud platforms, data stores, integration patterns, delivery pipelines, security controls and operational tooling.
| Languages & Frameworks | C#, .NET (Core / Framework); Java; JavaScript / TypeScript; Node.js; Python (automation, scripting) |
|---|---|
| Data Stores | SQL Server (design, optimisation, HA/DR); PostgreSQL; MongoDB; Cosmos DB; Redis |
| Cloud Platforms | Azure: App Services, Functions, AKS, Storage, Service Bus, Event Grid, Azure SQL, Key Vault AWS: EC2, ECS, Lambda, RDS, DynamoDB, S3, CloudWatch, API Gateway |
| AI & Cognitive | Azure OpenAI (GPT-4/4o), Azure AI Search with vector search and hybrid retrieval, RAG pipelines, chunking/embedding strategies, prompt orchestration; document intelligence and ingestion using Azure AI Document Intelligence/Form Recognizer, Event Grid/Service Bus triggers, Functions/Logic Apps, secure storage patterns with Key Vault and RBAC. |
| Architecture & Integration | REST & OpenAPI-driven APIs; Event-driven architecture (CQRS, Service Bus, SNS/SQS, EventBridge, RabbitMQ, TibCo); Microservices & modular monolith decomposition; DDD; Consumer-driven contract testing |
| DevOps & Delivery | CI/CD: GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, TeamCity; IaC: ARM, Bicep, Terraform; Containerisation: Docker, Kubernetes; Feature flags & progressive delivery |
| Security & Compliance | IAM, RBAC, PIM, secrets management; OWASP Top 10; WAF configuration; Threat modelling; Public sector audit & compliance |
| Observability & Operations | Application Insights; Azure Monitor / Log Analytics; CloudWatch; Centralised logging & alerting; Incident management & PIRs |
Professional Experience
Technical Director / Head of Engineering — Talent Consulting (2021–Present)
Technology and delivery consultancy (part of Swipejobs group), operating primarily in UK public sector. Principal client: Department for Education — £58bn+ annual budget, 337,000+ apprenticeship starts per year across 76,000+ employer organisations.
- Built and led a permanent multidisciplinary engineering team (engineering, architecture, DevOps, QA); established reference architectures, engineering standards, and communities of practice.
- Principal Architect across DfE programmes — hands-on architecture leadership and assurance from discovery through to live, presenting strategy and risk at Deputy Director-level governance forums.
- Contributed to securing approximately £40m of contracted revenue through technical proposition development and public sector bid responses; redesigned the bid lifecycle to increase throughput without additional headcount.
- Designed and delivered an AI-assisted bid management platform (Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, RAG pipelines, Document Intelligence, Functions, Service Bus) — automating first-draft generation, tender structuring, and scoring workflows. Now rolling out across the wider Swipejobs group.
Principal Architect — CPD & Family Hubs, DfE (2021–2023)
CPD services reach teachers and school leaders across thousands of English institutions; Family Hubs supports vulnerable families across dozens of local authority areas.
- Architectural owner for both programmes — defined target architectures covering identity, API-led integration, data flows, and operational tooling aligned to GDS standards and DfE enterprise patterns.
- Coordinated architectural decisions across an 18-team agile delivery model, including service boundaries, data ownership, and supplier integration patterns.
- Embedded security-by-design (IAM, network segmentation, secrets management, audit readiness) across services subject to government security classification and public data obligations.
- Guided services through discovery, alpha, beta, and live phases via design reviews, ADRs, and delivery assurance; communicated trade-offs and risk to senior DfE stakeholders.
Applications Architect — Comparethemarket (2017–2021)
UK’s most recognised price comparison platform (87% brand awareness); 7+ million customers; BGL Group revenues exceeding £700m per annum. Customer base grew 12%+ year-on-year during tenure.
- Architectural owner for the core Pricing Platform and partner risk services — led multi-year decomposition of a high-traffic on-premises monolith into AWS microservices using API-led and event-driven patterns.
- Introduced resilience engineering (circuit breakers, bulkhead isolation, automated failover), observability (distributed tracing, structured logging), and consumer-driven contract testing — reducing incident detection from days to minutes.
- Drove deployment frequency from monthly to daily; introduced automated security scanning; raised security baseline across an FCA-relevant platform.
- Mentored senior engineers and tech leads; chaired cross-team technical forums across multiple delivery squads.
Consultant Developer — EasyJet, Seat Selection (2016–2017)
EasyJet carried ~74 million passengers annually at the time — Europe’s second-largest budget airline. The digital booking flow is one of its highest-traffic customer touchpoints.
- Built customer-facing seat selection on Azure (MVC + KnockoutJS) as part of the booking journey used by tens of millions of travellers per year.
- Engineered an Azure Service Bus integration for real-time Pluscard validation via REST API during booking; implemented a PHP client for third-party compatibility.
Consultant Developer — Tesco Entertainment (2015–2016)
Tesco holds ~27% UK grocery market share with 20 million+ Clubcard households. Tesco Entertainment was one of the UK’s leading digital entertainment retailers by consumer market share.
- Delivered the “was/now/save” price cross-out feature across ~400,000 products to live release; maintained the Endeca search service powering entertainment discovery.
- Developed a conceptual Android MP3 purchase and download app (Java) within time and budget, alongside ongoing .NET platform delivery.
Director — TouchScreenData Ltd (2004–2015)
Independently founded technology consultancy — eleven years delivering bespoke digital platforms across retail, charity, and consumer sectors.
- Designed and built a greenfield online marketplace for the UK antiques sector (estimated £1bn+ annual market value) using .NET; delivered LAMP projects for clients including Coca-Cola and Children’s Trust.
- Operated as both technical lead and business owner across the full project lifecycle, from client engagement through to delivery.
Education
BEng (Hons) Electrical & Electronic Engineering — Loughborough University (First Class)