Business Architect

Job summary

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime and migration.

We are recruiting for three experienced Business Architects, one role will be working in Economic Statistics Improvement (ESI) one supporting the Census 2031 and one in Digital Services.

Economic Statistics Improvement (ESI) directorate has responsibility for delivering the Economic Statistics Plan, setting the strategic direction for how we develop, modernise, and enhance the UK’s economic statistics. Architecture, Design and Data Sources (ADDS) division sits within the ESI Directorate, in the Surveys and Economic Statistics (SES) Group.The division is made up of experts involved in the design and delivery of change. Our work focuses on detailed architecture, design and exploitation of new and existing data. To achieve success, we work in partnership with Delivering ESEG Change & Strategy (DECS) and Development, Delivery and Support (DDS) Divisions.

Census 2031 represents our most ambitious data collection project yet – a once-in-a-decade opportunity to capture a complete picture of everyone living in England and Wales. Building on the digital success of 2021, we're pioneering new ways to reach every household and community, ensuring no one is left uncounted. This vital work will provide the foundation for policy decisions, resource allocation, and community planning for the next decade.

Digital Services (DS) Directorate develops and operates much of the technology and services that ONS uses to deliver. Demand for data and statistics are increasing, and DS has a critical role in enabling the business to meet these demands. The Governance, Government Digital and Data Division sits within the Digital Services Directorate. This division is made up of experts in Strategy, Architecture, Governance, Planning and Delivery. This role will help bridge the gap between strategic goals and operational delivery by providing insights that support informed decision making.

Job description

Leading the Business Architecture for the organisation and designing programmes and projects across the organisation. Working with teams to shape and contribute to Design Authority papers, ensuring design governance is adhered to. Supporting senior leaders to develop their strategy and to help shape scope and direction for transformation programmes. Define business capabilities, map capabilities against business areas and undertake maturity assessments. Upskilling and line managing junior Business Architects and apprentices. Developing the function of Business Architecture, contribute to the Design Framework and knowledge base.

A Business Architect uses their knowledge and experience to understand business scenarios, communicate the issues and recommend next steps. They support and guide other business architects.

We would like the candidate to have professional membership of the Business Architecture Guild, or a willingness to work towards this qualification.

Responsibilities

• Support executive level work and management of the business architecture practice.
• Guide others in using appropriate business architectural tools and methods.
• Understand and apply business architectural principles, techniques, and tools to business scenarios.
• Create business architecture artefacts, including abstract representations of the organisation, knowing when to apply them.
• Develop standard and scalable models to collect, aggregate, or disaggregate complex information.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Business architecture (Practitioner) - Apply and develop business architecture frameworks, principles and techniques in your organisation. Advise and guide the organisation to inform the implementation of its strategy. Share the value of business architecture with the organisation. Make decisions characterised by medium levels of risk and complexity and recommend decisions as risk and complexity increase. Build consensus between services or independent stakeholders.
• Methods and Tools (Practitioner) - Build capability in methods and tools, ensuring they are adopted consistently and used effectively.
• Stakeholder relationship management (Practitioner) - Work with the team to develop and maintain an understanding of stakeholders. Work with the team to develop and implement stakeholder communications strategies. Identify and resolve issues, influence stakeholders and manage relationships effectively. Build long-term strategic relationships and communicate clearly and regularly with stakeholders
• Strategic design and Business Change (Practitioner) - Demonstrate a good understanding of business issues, events and activities, and their short to long term impact. Support defining principles, patterns, standards, policies, roadmaps and vision statements. Effectively focus on outcomes rather than solutions. Help to develop, maintain or update strategy in response to feedback and findings.
• Strategic thinking (Practitioner) - Define strategies and policies, providing guidance to others on working in the strategic context. Evaluate current strategies to ensure business requirements are being met and exceeded where possible.

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Changing and Improving
• Working Together

Technical skills

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

• Business architecture

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £56,861, Office for National Statistics contributes £16,472 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.

Inclusion & Accessibility

At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.

As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.

If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.

ONS are committed to flexible ways of working that support a healthy work-life balance. ONS has already considered how this job could be right sized for applicants working flexibly and we are happy to explore options with you about working part time, in a job share or flexibly, in line with our hybrid working policies.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

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 (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

Security Clearance

For ONS the requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying and the department will consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.

At the point of SC application, you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:

• Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
• UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
• Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency

• Security Services records

Visa Sponsorship

ONS can offer visa sponsorship as part of this recruitment campaign. However, applicants must still hold valid right to work in the UK at the point employment commences.

To work at the ONS, candidates must meet both UK right to work and security clearance requirements (where applicable).

If you are unsure whether you meet the appropriate right to work or security clearance eligibility criteria, please refer to the guidance on Gov.uk or contact the recruitment email provided in the advert before applying. Failure to meet these requirements will result in your application being rejected and employment offers being withdrawn.

Application Process

Number of Stages: 2 stage process

Stage 1: Application

Stage 2: Interview

Stage 1 – Application

The assessment process at the application stage will be based on your work history, CV, skills, experience, and personal statement. It is important that your application is tailored to highlight the skills, knowledge, and experience relevant to the role.

A personal statement is required at application stage, the maximum word count allowed is 1250 words, which should not be exceeded. You should provide evidence for each essential skill criterion listed in the person specification. As these criteria are scored, it is advisable to give clear examples for each one, including the impact of your actions, ideally utilising the STAR technique (Situation, Task, Action, Result).

Please note that Success Profiles Behaviour examples are not required at this stage of the application process.

In instances where a high number of applications are received, the sift pass mark may be adjusted, and candidates will be invited to interview based on merit order, i.e., those with the highest scores.

When a high volume of applications are received, the sift pass mark may be adjusted. Candidates will be invited to interview based on their merit order, with those achieving the highest scores being prioritised. Applicants who score below the adjusted pass mark but still pass will be placed on hold and may be invited to interview at a later date.

Stage 2 – Interview

If invited to interview, you will be assessed using techniques aligned with the Civil Service Success Profiles framework, covering all behaviours listed in the job advert and any required technical skills.

You will be required to provide a 10 minute presentation at interview. The presentation topic will be emailed to candidates who have passed the initial online application stage, 1 week prior to interview. This presentation will assess candidates against the Business architecture.

Interviews will be via Microsoft Teams.

A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.

We often have similar roles available at different grades. If a candidate is suitable for a similar role or a lower grade than they have applied for, we may offer the candidate that role without the need to go through a further selection process providing the role has the same behaviours, and essential skills.

Important Dates

• Eligibility checks from 22/05 - 29/05
• Sift will be conducted from 01/06/2026
• Interviews will be conducted from 15/06/2026

For the full terms and conditions of the post, please see attachment.

Please note that all campaigns may be subject to withdrawal at any stage if the internal resource position changes.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.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) (opens in a new window)
• 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 (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) 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 (opens in a new window).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 theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) 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

Job contact :

• Name : Government Digital and Data Recruitment
• Email : Government-Digital-and-Data-Recruitment@ons.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : Government-Digital-and-Data-Recruitment@ons.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, in the first instance, you should contact recruitment.complaints@ons.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission

Attachments

2721 Advert 1B Permanent - ONS National Opens in new window (pdf, 83kB)