IT Architect — IT Solution Experts IT Architect — IT Solution Experts

Experience

Twenty-five years of it — where the work has been done, and what it achieved.

This is Darren Pilkington's own delivery history, most of it as an architect and SME inside large programmes. Clients are described by sector rather than name: engagements were under contract and confidentiality, and I would rather be trusted with yours than trade on theirs.

2024 – present

Permanent

Technical Integration Lead

Global IT services provider

Technical lead on enterprise integration and security projects across major client environments, applying AI-assisted tooling to accelerate delivery.

  • File integrity monitoring deployed across client estates to strengthen compliance posture
  • Managed file transfer designed and implemented for secure, automated data movement
  • Windows and Linux infrastructure hardened with Ansible, Group Policy and vendor security baselines
  • Penetration testing and vulnerability remediation, with risk reduction reported to senior stakeholders
  • Escalation point for complex problems blocking project delivery

2023 – present

Own consultancy

Infrastructure Architect — AI & Automation SME

Independent practice

Infrastructure architecture, automation and applied AI delivered directly to clients through IT Solution Architecture Limited, backed by a private hybrid cloud lab.

  • Private hybrid cloud lab designed and operated for proof-of-concept work and continuous research
  • Production AI agent orchestration pipelines built on Claude, OpenAI and Grok APIs, with tool use, memory and structured output
  • LLM-assisted Terraform and Ansible generation, and AI triage of vulnerability scan output
  • Self-hosted LLM environments on private infrastructure with network segmentation and scripted policy
  • Reference implementations published publicly on GitHub

2021 – 2024

Contract

IT Infrastructure Security Architect

Security consultancy, delivering for a global airline group

Architected a zero-trust cloud access solution and led migration of an on-premises estate into AWS.

  • Zero-trust access implemented with Entra ID and AWS IAM, MFA enforced across all workloads
  • 50+ on-premises servers migrated to AWS
  • SIEM and vulnerability scanning deployed for real-time visibility of the cloud estate
  • Security configuration automated with Terraform and Ansible, cutting manual provisioning time by roughly 60%
  • AI-assisted infrastructure-as-code generation and review introduced into the delivery pipeline

2021 – 2022

Contract

IT Infrastructure Architect

UK life and pensions provider

Led the secure migration of on-premises managed file transfer into a multi-region cloud design.

  • 10TB of sensitive financial data migrated, encrypted in transit and at rest
  • Multi-region architecture with encrypted private networking
  • Endpoint protection and firewall policy rolled out across the migrated estate
  • Vulnerability remediation carried out throughout, completed with zero data loss

2020 – 2021

Contract

IT Infrastructure Security Architect

Global IT services provider, delivering for a global airline group

Delivered a global identity and access transformation for 65,000 users across a hybrid cloud estate.

  • 65,000-user privileged access and identity governance programme delivered
  • Thousands of servers hardened across multiple regions with policy, patching, firewalls and monitoring
  • Enterprise SIEM implemented for centralised logging and real-time threat detection
  • Security policy enforcement automated across the estate with Terraform and PowerShell

2015 – 2019

Contract

IT Infrastructure Architect

Global IT services provider, delivering for a global energy major

Designed and deployed secure hybrid cloud infrastructure globally, and ran the exit of four legacy data centres.

  • Four legacy data centres decommissioned with zero data loss
  • 2,000 servers migrated to hybrid cloud during a vSphere platform upgrade, under strict access controls
  • Vulnerability scanning, SIEM and endpoint protection deployed across 25 global gas facilities
  • Network segmentation and hardening implemented across the estate
  • Engineering teams mentored on secure migration practice

2001 – 2014

Contract

Infrastructure Architect & Build SME

Global consultancies, delivering for a multinational energy group

Thirteen years as a global infrastructure architect and build SME for an energy group operating in more than 50 countries — data centre build, platform design and large-scale migration.

  • Data centres built and commissioned for remote offices worldwide, plus new enterprise data centres in the UK
  • Thousands of virtual machines and business applications migrated, including energy trading systems
  • Core infrastructure services deployed end to end — Active Directory, Citrix XenApp, VMware vSphere, NetApp storage, NetBackup, endpoint protection, Linux and managed file transfer
  • Server, storage and virtualisation platforms designed for estates spanning 50+ countries
  • Mobile device management and vulnerability scanning rolled out across a global mobile and server estate

Full history

A complete employment history, endorsements and the full skills list are on LinkedIn.