Our client, a leading consultancy, is currently seeking a highly skilled Payments Migration Solution Architect to join their team. This is a contract role requiring exceptional expertise in payments scheme migrations and a practical delivery approach. You will play a crucial part in transitioning legacy platforms to new architectures while minimising risks to business-critical payment processing.
Key Responsibilities:
- Own data and technical architecture bridging mainframe and target platforms
- Define data mappings, extraction approaches, and migration controls
- Support safe, controlled execution of payments migrations within regulated environments
- Identify, document, and escalate risks early to protect live payment flows
- Work closely with engineering teams, subject matter experts, and delivery leadership
Mandatory Skills & Experience:
Payments Migration Experience
- Senior-level experience leading Payments Migration within PMI programmes
- Strong hands-on involvement in scheme integration, migration, or transformation
Payments Scheme Expertise (UK & International)
- Deep expertise in UK payment schemes, including BACS and Faster Payments (FPS)
- Strong international payments experience, including SWIFT and SEPA
Payments Risk, Controls & Regulatory Assurance
- Proven leadership in payments risk management and assurance
- Experience with regulatory and control frameworks, including CASS and CISA-aligned audit or assurance frameworks
Practical Architecture & Delivery
- Hands-on architecture or design experience in core payments processing environments
- Ability to clearly articulate involvement in payment schemes, specific roles in architecture or design, and responsibility for payment flow components such as gateway layers, clearing and settlement flows, core payment engines, message transformation, and reconciliation
End-to-End Payments Understanding
- Strong understanding of payment lifecycles
- Clear grasp of how messages move across systems under real production conditions
Legacy & Complex Environments
- Experience working within legacy and non-standard implementations
- Ability to reconcile documented designs with actual system behaviour
- Comfortable delivering within constraints rather than ideal-state redesigns
Technical Familiarity
- Mainframe-integrated architectures
- Messaging technologies such as IBM MQ and MT/MX translation layers
Communication & Stakeholder Management
- Ability to engage confidently with subject matter experts, engineers, and senior stakeholders
- Strong documentation skills covering findings, assumptions, and risks
- Support alignment across architecture, delivery, and operational teams
If you are a seasoned Solution Architect with significant experience in payments migration looking for a new challenge, we encourage you to apply now to join our client's dynamic team in the fintech industry.
