Technical Architect – Disaster Recovery Runbooks

Technical Architect – Disaster Recovery Runbooks Location: Remote (Hybrid available) Contract Type: 3-month contract Rate: £425 per day (Inside IR35) Security Clearance: SC clearance required (active and transferable, minimum 3 months validity) Overview We are seeking an experienced Technical Architect with strong Disaster Recovery (DR) and resilience expertise to lead the design, development, and validation of end-to-end DR runbooks across critical IT services. This role focuses on ensuring robust, executable recovery strategies that align with business continuity requirements, including RTO/RPO targets, dependency mapping, and recovery sequencing across complex infrastructure and application landscapes. Key Responsibilities * Analyse Business Impact Analysis (BIA) outputs and translate into technical recovery requirements * Define minimum viable recovery states for critical services * Design end-to-end disaster recovery strategies, including full environment loss scenarios * Develop and maintain detailed DR runbooks with clear recovery steps and decision points * Identify dependencies, sequencing requirements, and failure modes across applications and infrastructure * Lead tabletop exercises and structured runbook walkthroughs * Validate recovery procedures and refine based on testing outcomes * Collaborate with application, infrastructure, and architecture teams to ensure operational readiness * Provide structured handover documentation to support teams for ongoing ownership Required Experience * Strong background in Disaster Recovery architecture and resilience engineering * Proven experience designing end-to-end DR solutions (not component-level only) * Hands-on experience producing DR runbooks from scratch * Strong understanding of RTO/RPO and BIA interpretation * Experience with cloud, hybrid, and on-prem infrastructure environments * Ability to map complex application and infrastructure dependencies * Experience running DR tests, tabletop exercises, and recovery simulations * Strong technical documentation and stakeholder communication skills * Experience working in high-pressure operational environments Desirable Experience * Cloud recovery strategies (AWS, Azure, or hybrid environments) * Experience with microservices, SaaS, and legacy application architectures * Exposure to enterprise-scale resilience frameworks and standards * Experience refining DR processes through real-world testing outcomes Security Requirement Candidates must hold active SC clearance that is transferable and valid for at least 3 months