Principal Consultant

We are seeking a Principal Consultant who can lead with vision, credibility, and strategic insight to shape transformative outcomes for our customers. In this senior role, you will act as a trusted advisor to leadership teams, guiding organisations through complex digital change and ensuring the successful delivery of high-impact Microsoft Business Applications programmes. You will combine deep functional expertise with exceptional stakeholder leadership, overseeing multiple delivery streams while championing best-practice solution design, governance, and value realisation. If you are a strategic thinker who thrives on influencing business direction, inspiring teams, and driving meaningful technological change, we would love to hear from you.

About the Role

The Principal Consultant is a strategic leader responsible for shaping and driving successful digital transformation outcomes for customers. This is a new role that provides senior-level functional and delivery leadership, ensuring high-quality solution design, governance, and stakeholder engagement across major Microsoft Business Applications programmes. You will act as a trusted advisor, influencing business strategy while leading multiple project teams towards value-driven delivery.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead strategic discovery, solution envisioning, and functional architecture for large-scale or complex Business Applications engagements
• Oversee multiple delivery streams, ensuring alignment with customer objectives and quality standards across the lifecycle
• Build strong relationships with senior customer stakeholders to drive adoption, value realisation, and long-term partnership success
• Provide technical and functional governance to delivery teams, ensuring consistency, compliance, and best-practice solution design
• Act as an escalation point for risks, design decisions, and stakeholder concerns, ensuring proactive resolution
• Lead continuous improvement of delivery methodologies, consulting standards, and knowledge sharing across the practice
• Support presales activities including solution shaping, estimates, resource strategy, and customer presentations
• Manage, mentor, coach, and develop Consultants and Architects, ensuring a high-performing delivery team and skills pipeline.

Knowledge and Experience

• 10+ years of experience in customer-facing delivery roles within a Microsoft Partner organisation
• Deep functional knowledge of Dynamics 365 CE and Power Platform capabilities, including Azure, and how they drive business outcomes
• Extensive experience facilitating C suite level engagements and steering level governance
• Proven ability to influence commercial outcomes and identify growth opportunities within customer accounts
• Clear track record in translating business strategy into scalable, sustainable, and value driven technology solutions.

Personal Characteristics

• A visionary and influential leader with strong commercial intuition and a customer obsessed mindset
• Highly credible communicator with exceptional facilitation, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills
• Entrepreneurial, proactive, and comfortable making decisive recommendations under pressure
• Confident and empathetic leader who fosters trust, inspires collaboration, and builds high performing teams
• Demonstrates continuous personal development and a passion for remaining ahead of emerging Microsoft capabilities and industry trends.

Personal Abilities

• Strong analytical thinker able to quickly diagnose complex challenges and lead teams in resolving them constructively
• Outstanding organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple programmes and priorities simultaneously
• Ability to design and articulate technology enabled business transformation and confidently challenge customer assumptions when needed
• Able to balance strategic leadership with hands on involvement where required to ensure delivery success.

Technical Abilities

• Authority level functional expertise across core Dynamics 365 CE workloads (Sales, Customer Service, Marketing).
• Strong understanding of the broader Power Platform ecosystem including Power Apps, Power BI, Power Pages, Dataverse, and Azure integrations.
• Familiarity with extension approaches including plugins, workflows and JavaScript, with the ability to govern appropriate use.
• Ability to define solution architecture in collaboration with Architects to ensure scalable, secure and high quality implementation.

What We Offer

• Industry aligned competitive salary
• 33 days annual leave, including bank holidays
• Continuous professional development
• Access to learning resources to support study to achieve Microsoft certifications
• Bonus paid on passing agreed exams to gain specific Microsoft certifications
• Auto enrolment pension scheme with options to increase your contributions
• Employee wellbeing strategy
• Free flu jabs
• Eyecare vouchers
• Company events
• Free on site parking.

About Us

We believe in our culture, values and staff successes. We invest in developing our staff and we support our employees with their professional development goals. We strive to offer an environment that provides our staff with the right work/life balance. We offer genuine career prospects: you will have a clear career progression path with the opportunity to become stakeholders within the business as it transitions to an employee owned company.

This role is UK based but we particularly welcome applications from candidates within commuting distance of our Northampton HQ, as on site collaboration and client engagement form part of the role. Candidates must have full entitlement to work and reside in the UK.

Strictly Personal Applicants Only

Please apply here to upload your CV and cover letter, describing why you feel you are right for this position, together with details of your current and minimum salary expectations, current benefits and notice period. Ref: 2516. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis; we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

Please note we cannot sponsor applicants for a visa

Please only apply if you have the right to work in the UK and are resident in the UK. Ashton Court is committed to supporting individuals with the desire and capacity for long term career growth and development to achieve their full potential. Because the limitations of a time bound visa do not align with our long term career development plans, we regret we cannot accept applications from candidates whose right to work in the UK relies on a temporary, time limited or dependency visa.

Interview Process

Ashton Court Group is an equal opportunities employer. Interviews are conducted in a two stage process. Successful applicants will be invited to an initial 30 minute Teams meeting with a senior member of staff in the same discipline as the role for which you have applied. If successful, we will be inviting candidates to a second interview of up to one hour, including an assessment of your skills and experience and may include a technical test. Final interview and offer of employment is held in person at our offices. Full details will be provided at a later date for those who are selected.

Recruitment Agencies

Strictly no agency contact in response to this vacancy. We have a strict company policy to recruit directly. We therefore do not accept speculative CVs and/or cold calls to our Recruitment Team or Hiring Manager.

Ashton Court Group is an experienced client focussed information systems consultancy providing on premise, cloud, and hybrid solutions to the public, private, and not for profit sectors. As a Microsoft Business Solutions Partner, we maintain comprehensive knowledge of Microsoft's software tools and applications, and the expertise to deliver successful projects on time and on budget.

Ashton Court Group Ltd
Thorpewood Management Centre
Blisworth Road
Courteenhall
Northampton
NN7 2QB