Job Description

Details

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Reference number

426695

Salary

55,575
Roles based in London will receive an additional London Weighting Allowance of 4,218 per annum, subject to annual review.




This position attracts a Recruitment and Retention Allowance (RRA) of 3,000 per annum as an addition to the advertised salary, subject to annual review.
A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
GBP

Job grade

Senior Executive Officer
NCA Grade 3 / Police Inspector

Contract type

Permanent

Fixed term

Loan

Secondment

Length of employment

This role is available on a permanent basis. Candidates may opt for a 24-month Fixed Term Appointment, Loan or Secondment if appropriate.

Business area

NCA - DDaT

Type of role

Architecture and Data

Working pattern

Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time

Number of jobs available

4

Contents

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

Location

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Belfast; Birmingham; Bristol; Calder (Normanton); Leicester; London*; Warrington




For roles based in London, your contractual place of work will be Stratford. While the Stratford site is expected to become operational from November 2025 - March 2026, you will be required to carry out your contractual duties from Vauxhall or another reasonable location on a temporary basis during the interim period. Please note that, as Stratford will be your contractual place of work, any subsequent move from a temporary location will not entitle you to payments for travel time or costs under the Relocation and Excess Travel Policy.

About the job

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Job summary

We are currently looking to recruit a Network Architect to support the design, assurance and evolution of the NCA's network infrastructure in support of its mission-critical services. This role is essential in enabling secure, resilient and scalable connectivity across on-premise, cloud and hybrid environments.


You will help shape the Agency's network strategy and ensure that all network solutions align with enterprise architecture, security standards, and operational requirements. The role includes responsibility for embedding network considerations within architectural governance and assurance processes, ensuring that network designs are reviewed, compliant and appropriately challenged at key design stages.


Working across programmes and delivery teams, you will provide technical leadership, mitigate risk and guide the transition to modern, future-proof network solutions.


This role aligns to Network Architect within the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework.


If you would like to find out more about this role and the application process we will be holding a virtual opening evening via MS Teams on Wednesday 17th September 2025 at 6.00pm.



This event is by invitation only.




To register, please click on the following link DDaT VIRTUAL EVENT.




You will be asked for your name and email address. Please ensure that you spell your email address correctly.



Registration will close on Tuesday 16th September at 12:00pm. You will not be able to register after this date and time.




Please see our Privacy Policy for details on how your data is handled.

Job description

The Digital Data and Technology (DDaT) Directorate is responsible for creating a cutting-edge technology and information environment that connects, empowers and enhances our Officers' crimefighting capabilities.


We are responsible for defining and delivering our data and technology strategy, policy and architecture, building and sustaining resilient services which are critical to our mission success. We work closely with our operational teams to help them do their job in the most effective and efficient way, understanding their challenges and combining this with emerging technologies/techniques to obtain and exploit data in innovative ways to ensure we stay ahead of the criminals who are committing some of most serious crimes and inflicting harm to our society.


Are you ready to join the team?

Duties and Responsibilities:

Support the architectural design and strategic oversight of all network-related systems and services across the Agency, ensuring alignment with operational, technical and business needs. Develop, maintain, and govern network architecture blueprints, design standards, and multi-year roadmaps that support the Agency's digital transformation and strategic IT direction. Provide expert guidance and assurance on network design across technologies including LAN/WAN, cloud networking, VPN, SD-WAN and zero-trust models, ensuring suitability for a multi-GSC tier environment. Ensure all network solutions meet required levels of security, resilience, performance and scalability, and that they are subject to appropriate architectural governance and design assurance. Act as a subject matter expert on networking within major programmes, actively contributing to architecture reviews, transition planning and technical assurance activities. Collaborate closely with the Security Architect to embed secure networking principles, controls, and threat mitigations within design and implementation phases. Monitor and evaluate emerging networking technologies, industry trends, and innovation opportunities, applying them where appropriate to improve capability, agility and cost-effectiveness. Contribute to architectural governance forums and design authorities, ensuring that network services are aligned with wider architectural standards and Agency objectives, and that assurance checkpoints are effectively met.

Person specification

Experience in designing, delivering, and assuring enterprise-grade network architectures, including cloud-native, hybrid, and multi-site environments that support high-availability and secure operations. Technical knowledge of core networking technologies and protocols, including routing, switching, firewalls, DNS, load balancing, VPN and network segmentation, with the ability to apply them to complex, mission-critical infrastructures. Experience in designing and supporting tiered secure network environments, including cross-domain connectivity, segmentation between classification levels, and the design of secure network boundaries for sensitive or air-gapped systems. Understanding of secure and resilient network design principles, with experience applying government or regulated sector security frameworks, such as those from NCSC, ISO, or equivalent standards. Experience in implementing and assuring secure and controlled data transfer mechanisms between trusted and untrusted network zones, including one-way and brokered transfer patterns where required. Experience in network performance tuning, telemetry, monitoring and fault diagnosis across distributed environments, ensuring reliability, scalability and alignment with operational SLAs and architectural best practices.

Desirable criteria, only to be assessed in the event of a tie break:

Have an understanding of most of the following network technologies: LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network), wifi, data-centre LAN, SD (software-defined) networks, telephony, mobile solutions infrastructure, unified comms, network management solutions, network-specific security and remote access technologies and approaches.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:


Leadership Seeing the Big Picture

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:


Experience in network performance tuning, telemetry, monitoring, and fault diagnosis across distributed environments, ensuring reliability, scalability and alignment with operational SLAs and architectural best practices. Experience in designing, delivering, and assuring enterprise-grade network architectures, including cloud-native, hybrid, and multi-site environments that support high-availability and secure operations.

Benefits

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Alongside your salary of 55,575, National Crime Agency contributes 16,100 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
New entrants to the NCA receive 26 days annual leave, rising to 31 on completion of 5 years continuous service, plus 8 bank holidays.


If qualifying criteria is met new joiners from UK Police Forces or the UK Intelligence Community (UKIC) will have service with those employers taken into account for continuous service purposes for annual leave entitlement only, this will be up to a maximum of 31 days leave (including 1 privilege day).


Other benefits include:

Flexible working, including flexi-time, compressed hours and job sharing (in line with business requirements). Family friendly policies, notably above the statutory minimum. Learning and Development opportunities. Interest free loans and advances, including season tickets, childcare and rental deposits. Housing schemes - Key Worker status. Discounts and Savings with a wide variety of services including Cycle to Work, Smart Tech schemes, dental insurance, gym discounts and savings on everyday spending, available through the Reward Gateway, Edenred and Blue Light Card schemes. Staff support groups/networks. Sports and social activities, including membership to the Civil Service Sports Council (CSSC).

Things you need to know

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Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles , and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.
Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

How we will assess you

Your application will be assessed against the following:

Experience

- This will be assessed by the following:

CV

Please include your full career history, training, qualifications, key responsibilities, and achievements. Explain any employment gaps in the last two years. Ensure all accreditation dates are accurate.


Details of what is expected within you CV are as follows: Your CV should consist of your career history, qualifications and skills including any key achievements in each role. It will be used to provide further context on your personal statement and scored against the skills and experience set out in the person specification, detailed in the job description.

Statement of Suitability

Please provide a 1250 word personal statement demonstrating how you meet the criteria below:


The Personal Statement should be aligned to and demonstrate how you meet the skills and experience set out in the person specification, detailed in the job description.


A panel will assess how well your application demonstrates the requirements outlined above.
You will receive an acknowledgement once your application is submitted.


We aim to have sift completed and scores released within 10 working days of the closing date of the advert. For high volume campaigns this timeframe may be extended.


Scores will be provided but further feedback will not be available at this stage.


For guidance on the application process, visit: NCA Applying and Onboarding#

Assessment 1

The format of this assessment will be Interview which will be tested on the criteria listed in the

Success Profiles at Assessment

section.

Success Profiles at Assessment

Behaviours

Leadership Seeing the Big Picture

Technical

Experience in network performance tuning, telemetry, monitoring, and fault diagnosis across distributed environments, ensuring reliability, scalability and alignment with operational SLAs and architectural best practices. Experience in designing, delivering, and assuring enterprise-grade network architectures, including cloud-native, hybrid, and multi-site environments that support high-availability and secure operations.

Experience

Architectural thinking, relevant experience and how you approach complex delivery within the given domain, aligned to the person specification, detailed in the job description.

Presentation

Applicants that are invited to interview will be asked to deliver a presentation based on the below criteria:
You will be asked to deliver a 10 minute presentation at interview. This will be on the Experience criteria listed within the advert. The presentation scenario will be provided ahead of the interview.

Assessment Outcome

Outcomes will be communicated via the NCA recruitment portal.

If successful but no role is immediately available, you may be placed on a reserve list for 12 months.
In the event of a tie at the assessment stage, available roles will be offered in merit order using the following order:

Lead criteria (behaviours/technical/experience) If still tied, desirable criteria will be assessed (if advertised) If still tied, application sift scores will be used
Feedback is provided only to those who attend an assessment.
You will be subject to vetting and pre-employment checks before appointment.
Once the vacancy closes, the advert will no longer be accessible. Please save a copy for your records.
We encourage all candidates to visit the NCA Careers Page for more information.

Full advert details for this vacancy can found on the advert on the NCA Recruitment Portal. Please follow the link to apply at advertisers' site.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

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



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 : central.recruitment@nca.gov.uk Email : central.recruitment@nca.gov.uk
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Recruitment team

* Email : central.recruitment@nca.gov.uk