Lead Technical Architect

Job summary

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government — we are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

1. joining up public sector services
2. harnessing the power of AI for the public good
3. strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
4. elevating leadership and investing in talent
5. funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
6. committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need

GOV.UK App

The GOV.UK App is a new channel for GOV.UK. The app combines mobile-native features with AI technologies and functionality provided by other GDS products to offer a proactive and more personalised experience of GOV.UK on your phone. The app makes it easier for citizens to interact with government and helps government offer more proactive support to citizens

This role will focus specifically on developing the GOV.UK app and its seamless integration with existing GOV.UK services and other government departments. Reporting into the Head of Architecture, you’ll work within and support the wider GOV.UK app architecture team and collaborate with peers including the Head of Mobile Engineering to deliver a user-centric, highly scalable, resilient, and performant app experience.

It is expected that this role will involve outreach to other government departments, so an ability to communicate to a wide set of stakeholders, along with the ability to manage many work streams concurrently is a must.

Job description

As a GDS Lead Technical architect, you’ll share the responsibility for the digital transformation of government. You will help design and drive the technical strategy for the area you work in while ensuring alignment with broader GDS standards and goals. You’ll hold the vision for technical architecture best practice in building resilient and reliable government services and communicate this to technical and non-technical audiences alike.

Lead Technical Architects often work across different teams and services. You’ll ensure that technical designs meet user needs and acceptance criteria, whilst conforming to time and budget constraints. You’ll thrive using agile methods and enjoy working collaboratively with departments and multidisciplinary teams. Above all, you’ll want to make government better, which may sometimes involve challenging the status quo.

As a Lead Technical Architect, you’ll:

• lead by example, be a visible leader who takes responsibility and acts as a role model
• contribute to the development and iteration of GDS architectural and engineering practices, principles and standards
• design technical services or plan system integration, selecting necessary platforms and technologies to meet project requirements and user needs
• provide technical leadership and consultancy to both internal and external development teams, ensuring designs & solutions are fit for purpose, whilst meeting time and budget restraints
• build and maintain technical roadmaps, looking ahead for future opportunities or blockers, and ensuring decisions by development teams align with the strategy
• encourage communication across multiple teams and wider organisational areas to identify strategic requirements and dependencies
• help develop services by contributing code, testing technologies and producing rapid prototypes
• advise teams on the right mix of capabilities to achieve their roadmapped goals and desired service levels
• act as a digital ambassador across government, supporting recruitment, identifying good practices for GDS to adopt and sharing experiences, e.g. through blog posts, tech talks at conferences etc
• be involved in helping recruiting technical architects and other senior technologists, where appropriate, helping sift and interview
• manage, coach and mentor more junior Technical Architects as well as others in the wider software engineering community

Person specification

We’re interested in people who have:

• experience working on digital products, specifically those involving high profile native mobile apps
• experience in AWS, especially serverless and event driven architectures
• experience delivering platforms that handle load at a national scale
• experience building services which handle sensitive user data
• a passion for technology and its delivery in building a user-centric service in an ever changing space, ensuring the right technology solutions meet outcomes for our users
• strong software development and application architecture experience, with good knowledge of cloud technologies, open source technologies, testing, and at least one programming language such as Javascript
• an understanding of how to influence, manage and challenge complex stakeholder relationships and communicate with both technical and non-technical audiences
• experience of developing and managing high performing, agile, technical teams and creating an inclusive, collaborative culture across boundaries and locations
• practical knowledge at all levels of the web stack, from front-end code down to infrastructure and networking
• a deep understanding of modern technology practices such as test-driven development (TDD), continuous integration, continuous delivery and DevOps
• a good knowledge of cloud security architecture, including threat modelling, analysis and operations
• experience developing and implementing technical strategy and standards
• experience defining and refining technical governance in multidisciplinary agile environments

If you meet a few of those criteria but think that you might not meet every last one then don’t let that stop you from submitting an application.

Benefits

There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:

• flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
• a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%
• 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
• an extra day off for the King’s birthday
• an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• death in service benefits
• cycle to work scheme and facilities
• access to an employee discounts scheme
• 10 learning days per year
• volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
• access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

Any move to Government Digital Service from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Office attendance
The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.
DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

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

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• a simple application screening process - we only ask for a CV, responses to 1 knockout question and a security check question Important tip - please ensure that your responses include how you meet the skills and experience listed in the “person specification” section above
• a 30 minute phone screen where you will be asked a few role-related questions to enable us to get to know you better (may not be required depending on the volume of applications)
• a 1.5 hour face-to-face interview including a presentation/interactive white board exercise (conducted over video conferencing)

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

In the event we receive a high volume of applications, we will conduct the initial sift against the lead criteria which is:

• experience working on digital products, specifically those involving high profile native mobile apps

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:

• communicating and influencing
• managing a quality service
• making effective decisions
• leadership
• developing self and others
• seeing the bigger picture

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Digital, Data and Technology Profession Capability Framework for the Lead Technical Architect role:

• architect for the whole context
• architecture communication
• community collaboration
• making architectural decisions
• strategy design
• technical design throughout the life cycle

Want to know more about who Government Digital and Data are? Click Here

Recruitment Timeline

Sift completion: w/c 16th March 2026

Phone screen: w/c 30th March 2026

Panel interviews: w/c 6th April 2026

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

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 D&I Strategy.

Whilst this role's location is Manchester, if you are a current Civil servant working in DSIT and based in Bristol/London you are also able to apply for this role. If you are successful, you will retain your current location and pay.

Please note that this role requires SC clearance, which would normally need 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years. This is not an absolute requirement, but supplementary checks may be needed where individuals have not lived in the UK for that period. This may mean your security clearance (and therefore your appointment) will take longer or, in some cases, not be possible.

For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers.

Sponsorship

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).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.

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.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).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 : gdsrecruitment@dsit.gov.uk
• Email : gdsrecruitment@dsit.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : gdsrecruitment@dsit.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 gds-complaints@dsit.gov.uk in the first instance.

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you can contact the Civil Service Commission by email: info@csc.gov.uk Or in writing: Civil Service Commission, Room G/8 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ.