Deputy Director Chief Architect - HO - SCS1

Location

Croydon, London, Manchester, Sheffield

About the job

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