Lead Technical Architect - MoD - G7

Location: MOD Corsham, SN13 9NR, MOD Main Building, London, SW1A 2HB, MOD Abbeywood, BS34 8JH

About the job

Defence Digital ensures our Armed Forces remain among the most technologically advanced in the world. We do this by putting innovative and effective technology into the hands of over 200,000 users, from the boardroom to the front line. We lead on cutting-edge data science, automation, and cyber security at scale. Our mission goes beyond the battlefield by leading humanitarian efforts and driving digital innovation that impacts lives across the globe. Defence Digital forms part of Strategic Command which manages the MOD’s joint capabilities for the Army, RAF, and Royal Navy.

Working at Defence Digital

Passionate about using your skills to make a critical difference? Your next career move could be here! This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.

Job description

As a Lead Technical Architect within the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Cloud and Hosting domain, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring technical strategies and architectures are developed, agreed, and followed. Working alongside business, technical, and other specialists, you will lead the ongoing development of technical standards, reference architectures, patterns and guidance used to ensure our solutions and services fit into the broader strategy for Defence and wider government. An Architect with proven skills in either Enterprise Cloud, Edge and Internet of Things (IoT), or End User Devices, you will bring your experience to help develop secure, resilient, and cutting edge technical architectures that support our critical Defence activities.

Responsibilities

• Building an understanding of Defence’s diverse and complex technology estate, including developing and delivering a range of technical architecture outputs, and acting as architecture subject matter expert and key point of contact.
• Contributing to Defence’s overall Enterprise Architecture, by developing technical strategies, policies, and roadmaps, from a business, technology, and data perspective, including ‘as-is’, ‘to-be’ and transitional states.
• Presenting architectural and technical recommendations to senior management and other key decision makers, providing expert guidance on key technologies, enterprise solutions, and digital transformation initiatives, to influence enterprise-level technical direction and digital technology decisions.
• Promoting pan-Defence reuse, operational sustainability, and scalability, to achieve value for money, drive integration by default, and reduce duplicative technology across the enterprise and delivery portfolio.
• Developing, leading, and participating in architecture communities as required, to collaborate and advise partners across Defence, Government, Industry, and our NATO Allies and to ensure business, technology, and data decisions are aligned with current Defence strategy. National and International travel will occasionally be required to support these engagements.
• Carrying out horizon scanning across industry, identifying emerging trends and their potential impact and opportunity, updating technical strategies and roadmaps, as appropriate.

For more information on Technical Architects please see the Government Digital and Data Framework.

Person specification

As a successful Lead Technical Architect you will bring experience of the following:

• Proven ability to design, implement, and evaluate secure, scalable, and reliable technical architectures that meet business needs.
• Ability to work independently on your own initiative, and under minimal supervision within a complex technology environment.
• Expertise in communicating the business value of technical architectures to stakeholders at all levels, including the most senior leadership.
• Demonstrable aptitude to lead, influence, and guide architects, engineers, developers, and other technical team members in accordance with approved architectures and patterns.
• Proficiency with Enterprise Cloud, Edge and Internet of Things, or End User Devices and related technologies.
• Familiarity with governance and compliance requirements, ideally from a Defence, Intelligence, or similar setting.

Essential Criteria

• Has demonstrated experience of working at the enterprise level, producing strategic, architectural, and design materials, in a role with pan-organisational responsibilities.
• Has demonstrated excellent formal and informal communication skills, and the ability to effectively influence and lead in a complex organisation.
• Has experience of working within a large and strictly governed Enterprise environment, for instance, from a Financial, Government, Defence, or National Security setting.
• Has relevant experience with complex or novel Enterprise technologies, Business or Collaborative Applications, AI, Cloud, Edge, IoT, or End User devices.

Behaviours

We will assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing

Technical skills

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

• Architect for the whole context
• Architecture communication
• Strategy Design
• Technical design throughout the life cycle