Technical Architect - Department for Business and Trade - G7
Government Digital & Data -
Location
Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, London, Salford
About the job
Job summary
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has a clear mission - to grow the economy. Our role is to help businesses invest, grow and export to create jobs and opportunities right across the country. We do this in three ways.
Firstly, we help to build a strong, competitive business environment, where consumers are protected and companies rewarded for treating their employees properly.
Secondly, we open international markets and ensure resilient supply chains. This can be through Free Trade Agreements, trade facilitation and multilateral agreements.
Finally, we work in partnership with businesses every day, providing advance, finance and deal-making support to those looking to start up, invest, export and grow.
The Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) directorate develops and operates tools and services to support us in this mission. The team have been nominated four times in a row for ‘Best Public Sector Employer’ at the Women in Tech awards and won the award in 2025!
Job description
We are seeking 4 Technical Architects to join our growing, collaborative team. These roles offer the opportunity to shape the technical direction of services, influencing design decisions from early discovery through to live operations.
You will be responsible for the overall technical design of services, ensuring they meet user needs, align with organisational goals, and adhere to time and budget constraints. You will also contribute to portfolio-level strategy and governance, helping to shape the future of digital delivery at DBT.
Our technology stack includes Python/Django, Node.js/React within cloud services such as AWS and Azure. We optimise our architecture for change, enabling continuous improvement and innovation.
This role is ideal for someone who enjoys solving complex problems, influencing technical direction, and fostering inclusive, high-performing teams. Above all, you will be motivated by the opportunity to improve public services and challenge the status quo where needed.
Main responsibilities
You will:
- Define and champion the technical strategy for services, ensuring alignment with user needs, business goals, and DDaT standards.
- Lead technical specialists across multiple projects, solving complex architectural challenges.
- Design and assure open-source, user-centred systems in agile environments.
- Own the technical design and evolution of services, including integration and interoperability.
- Provide technical governance and present designs to boards such as the Technical Design Authority.
- Build cloud solution designs and ensure they meet quality, security, and performance standards.
- Collaborate with architects across DBT to ensure alignment and coherence.
- Horizon scan for emerging technologies and assess their relevance to DBT.
- Contribute to the architecture community, sharing knowledge and mentoring peers.
- Support recruitment and capability development within the technical architecture profession.
We are recruiting Technical Architects across several specialist areas. You will have a core architecture skillset but may bring experience in one of the following areas:
AI-focused Technical Architect
This area focuses on exploring how AI can be used safely and effectively across DBT to improve business and public facing services. The role will involve leading on AI architecture utilising cloud platforms and the latest AI products, working with multidisciplinary scrum teams to prototype new ideas, test use cases and help turn the right solutions into secure, scalable, production services.
Cloud-focused Technical Architect
This area focuses on shaping and improving DBT’s cloud platform capability across AWS and Azure. The role will support the design of modern cloud services, help define best practice across the department and influence how DBT uses cloud technology to improve resilience, efficiency, and future service delivery.
ERP-focused Technical Architect
This area focuses on DBT’s involvement in a major cross-government ERP transformation programme. The role will support the design and integration of a new cross government ERP solution with an initial focus on the overarching architecture design and its integration architecture looking at how it connects with existing systems, how data will flow between services and how future business processes will be enabled through the new platform.
Technical Architect
This area focuses on architecting public-facing services, guiding the development of user-centred digital services that meet the needs of citizens, businesses, and government. Working closely with multidisciplinary teams to translate high-level architecture into practical technical plans, supporting the delivery of secure, scalable solutions across multiple scrum teams within a DDaT portfolio with services operating at a national scale. The role also provides technical leadership by shaping architectural direction, setting standards and design patterns, and ensuring services align with cross-government strategy, assurance processes, and the DDaT capability framework.
Person specification
It is essential that you have:
- Proven experience in designing and implementing secure cloud solutions using AWS and/or Azure with a track record of successful project delivery.
- Experience producing HLD’s and gaining approval through Governance Boards (Architecture Review board, Technical Design Authority, etc..)
- Experience in collaborating with development teams to translate HLDs into Low Level Designs (LLDs), ensuring alignment with standards
- Proven ability to lead technical teams and deliver user-focused services in agile environments.
- Demonstrated ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences, ensuring understanding and alignment across diverse stakeholders.
- Proven experience with API-driven architecture, data modelling, and relational databases.
It is desirable that you have:
- A willingness to learn new technologies and select the most appropriate tools for the task, seeing technology as an enabler.
- Experience using Python/Django and/or NodeJS/React
