Job Description

Details

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Reference number

421125

Salary

81,000 - 91,000
Standard Cabinet Office rules on pay will apply to civil servants appointed on level transfer or promotion. Their salary will increase to the minimum of the SCS PB1 range or by a promotion award of up to 10% more than their current basic salary excluding all allowances (whichever is the greater). Individuals appointed on level transfer will retain their existing basic salary excluding all allowances.
A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
GBP

Job grade

SCS Pay Band 1

Contract type

Permanent

Business area

HO - Digital Data and Technology

Type of role

Architecture and Data

Senior leadership

Working pattern

Flexible working, Full-time, Job share

Number of jobs available

1

Contents

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Location About the job Benefits Things you need to know Apply and further information

Location

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Croydon, London, Manchester, Sheffield

About the job

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Job summary

As Deputy Director Chief Architect for DDaT, you will be accountable for developing and delivering the enterprise architecture vision and strategy, overseeing the design of technical services and selecting platforms and technologies to meet the organisation's requirements and user needs. You will develop architecture blueprints and roadmaps and ensure all solutions are aligned with the enterprise architecture, monitoring emerging technologies and driving best practice standards.


A key part of this role will be to ensure that the technical, delivery and business impacts of all architectural design decisions are aligned to the technology strategy and understood by the appropriate stakeholders. To be successful, you will also need to collaborate effectively and build productive relationships between IT, business users, and internal/external service providers.


You will seek to identify how architecture teams can become leaner by removing unnecessary overheads and advising on how they can deliver more with existing capabilities. Through establishing effective ways of working, you will ensure that we meet our commitments, increasing the certainty of the outcomes we achieve. You will be accountable for ensuring that we deliver to cost and quality standards and managing risks and dependencies across multiple teams.


We are looking for someone who is strategic and forward thinking in terms of how we engage with the business and implement architecture solutions to achieve our long-term goals. You will strive to deliver better outcomes and value for money by encouraging and embedding a culture of continuous improvement.


In this role you will use your leadership skills to build and manage a knowledgeable and skilled architecture team, ensuring that they are fulfilling their deliverables on time and to a high level of quality, and are operating in an open and collaborative manner. As a leader within DDaT, you will inspire others and establish a culture that individuals feel proud to be a part of.

Job description

Key responsibilities include:

setting the architecture vision and roadmap for the Home Office and leading enterprise architecture strategic planning, ensuring alignment to the wider DDaT and Home Office technical strategy directing architecture policies, principles & standards and creating current/future state models and blueprints ensuring the organisation meets its legal obligations with solutions that are architected, designed, built and procured to meet relevant architecture standards and are accessible to all working with Security and Infrastructure teams to provide robust, secure, scalable and reusable solutions within time and budget restraints, and integrating them into business as usual ensuring strategic, technical and operational risks and issues relating to architecture are identified and appropriately managed leading a team of architecture, technology and engineering professionals, ensuring that they are managed effectively and aligned with the DDaT strategy defining and leading appropriate governance forums and processes for architecture, aligned with the DDaT Technical Design Authority, to ensure optimal decision-making and successful delivery embedding innovation into strategic planning and establishing continuous improvement processes that drive efficiency in the cost and quality of platform services For further information, please check the Candidate pack for the role, attached at the end of the advert.

Person specification

Essential criteria:

Strategic Architecture Leadership - Develop and implement architecture strategies that transform services across large organisations or government departments, integrating governance and processes into business-as-usual operations. Complex Digital Service Delivery - Design and build complex, high-volume, transactional digital services, while executing major IT programmes and maintaining comprehensive systems architecture (Business, Security, Data, Technical). Technical Authority and Innovation - Provide deep technical expertise in technology and platform services, driving innovation to improve cost-efficiency, service quality, and accelerate release cadence. Architecture Oversight - Measure and represent architecture and engineering maturity, assess technical risk, and lead software development and application architecture using open-source technologies and robust testing practices. Leadership and Team Management - Inspire and engage large, matrixed teams across Engineering, Technology, and Architecture in regulated environments, setting strategic direction and building professional capability. Stakeholder Engagement and Collaboration - Build, manage, and maintain effective relationships with stakeholders at all levels, championing collaboration and cooperation to achieve shared goals.

Qualifications

Degree or masters in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Administration or related field, or equivalent experience.

Desirable

Criteria

Ideally you will also have the following skills or some experience in:

domain-specific technologies eg. public cloud implementation Agile product management methodologies at least one programming language developing and directing cross-functional teams, ideally within a large organisation managing complex projects and driving continuous delivery

Benefits

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Alongside your salary of 81,000, Home Office contributes 23,465 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.Learning and development tailored to your role An environment with flexible working options A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Things you need to know

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Selection process details

Online Application

Please follow the Job Advert instructions on the Civil Service Jobs website to apply online, no later than

23:55hrs on 7th September 2025.

Provide some basic

personal information

;

A

CV -

setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role, including details where budgets and numbers of people managed, relevant achievements in recent posts, together with reasons for any gaps within the last two years; A

Statement of Suitability -

(limited to 1250 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience, provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the person specification.

Diversity Monitoring -

as part of the online application process, you will be asked a number of diversity-related questions. If you do not wish to provide a declaration on any of the characteristics, you will have the option to select 'prefer not to say'. See the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: 2022 to 2025 (HTML) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
It is essential that in your written application you give evidence, using examples, of proven experience. These responses will be developed and discussed with candidates invited for interview. Failure to submit both a CV and Supporting Statement will mean the panel only have limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification.



Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.




As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Security

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check .



See our vetting charter .
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:


UK nationals nationals of the Republic of Ireland nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020 Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.



We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles .
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy .

Apply and further information

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This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative.
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

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Job contact :

Name : Fiona Fisher Email : fiona.fisher@homeoffice.gov.uk
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Recruitment team

Email : SCSRecruitment@homeoffice.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint you should contact SCSRecruitment@homeoffice.gov.uk in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Home Office you can contact the Civil Service Commission.




Complaints should be sent in writing to:




Civil Service Commission,


Room G8,


1 Horse Guards Road,


London,


SW1A 2HQ.