Lead Technical Architect

Pay up to £99,836, plus 28.97% employer pension contributions, hybrid working, flexible hours, and great work-life balance.

Do you want to lead on the modernisation of systems that deliver billions of pounds in payments every week to citizens who rely on our support? As a Lead Technical Architect in DWP Payments, you'll operate at one of the highest levels of architectural leadership within DWP Digital. Payments is one of the most critical service areas in government, responsible for ensuring accurate, reliable and timely payments to millions of people. We are one of the biggest payers in the UK, across benefits and pensions and we're modernising our payments estate. We are moving away from legacy systems and designing future proofed, event driven, API led architectures that are resilient, scalable and secure.

You'll guide the technical strategy for major transformation initiatives, shaping how our next generation payments platform will work. You'll provide expert architectural leadership across cloud, on premise and hybrid environments, and work with multidisciplinary teams to design and govern high risk, high impact solutions. You'll collaborate closely with delivery teams and senior stakeholders, offering clear options and recommendations that influence technology decisions at scale. This is an exciting time to join us. The scale is huge, the challenge is real, and the opportunities for impact are significant. You'll help transform the backbone of one of the UK's largest public services.

What skills, knowledge and experience will you need?

• You know how to design microservice and API led architectures, and you understand the tools, techniques and best practices behind them.
• You have hands-on experience with event-based architectures, including pub/sub models, data streaming and modern integration patterns.
• You can design architectures that span cloud, on prem and hybrid environments, and understand networking, security, middleware, databases and integration.
• You use architecture principles, standards and patterns to guide design, making sure solutions align with strategy.
• You've shaped or supported delivery across agile, waterfall and hybrid environments, from initial concept all the way to go live.
• You can take complex business needs and turn them into clear, traceable technical solutions that stakeholders can understand.
• You use architecture modelling techniques and tools to represent designs in a way that supports decision making.

You and your role

As a Lead Technical Architect, you'll have a strategic role shaping how our Payments team designs, builds and operates the platforms that deliver billions in payments safely and reliably. We're taking on a major modernisation - moving from complex legacy systems to modern cloud based, event-driven architecture. You'll help lead that change, ensuring our new platforms are robust, secure, flexible and future ready.

You'll work across multiple teams and programmes, guiding architectural direction, setting standards and ensuring solutions meet both technical and business needs. You'll inspire, mentor and support the architecture community, helping others grow and ensuring consistent and high quality design across the organisation. Leadership in this role means influence: setting strategy, supporting communities, guiding decisions and creating clarity in complex environments. You'll solve some of the biggest and most important challenges in government technology: modernising legacy payment systems, improving resilience, handling huge volumes of data, and ensuring that millions of people get the right payment at the right time. Your impact will be felt in the reliability and security of services that people depend on every day. This is a role for someone who thrives on complexity, embraces large-scale transformation and wants to leave a lasting legacy in public service.

Details. Wages. Perks.

Location: You'll join us in one of our brilliant digital hubs in Birmingham, Blackpool, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle or Sheffield, whichever is most convenient for you.

Hybrid Working: We work a hybrid model - you'll spend some time working at home and some time collaborating face to face in a hub.

Pay: We offer competitive pay of up to £99,836. That's £75,026 salary plus a Government Digital and Data Allowance of up to £24,810 subject to our assessment of your capability at interview.

Pension: You'll get a brilliant civil service pension with employer contributions worth 28.97%, worth up to £21,735 per year.

Holidays: A generous leave package starting at 26 days rising to 31 days over time. You can also take up to 3 extra days off a month on flexi-time. You'll also get all the usual public holidays.

We have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:

• Flexible working including flexible hours and flex-friendly policies
• Time off volunteering and charitable giving
• Bring your authentic self to work with 'I Can Be Me in DWP'
• Discounts and savings on shopping, fun days out and more
• Interest-free loans to buy a bike or a season ticket, so it's even easier for you to get to work and start making a difference
• Sports and social activities
• Professional development, coaching, mentoring and career progression opportunities.

And we have an award-winning environment and culture:

• DWP have been recognised as 2024 Diversity Employer of the Year at the Computing Women in Tech Excellence awards
• Diverse and Inclusive Leadership at Digital Leaders Awards 2024
• Commended as Best Place to Work in Digital category in the Computing Digital Technology Leaders awards 2025
• Recognised as one of the Best Public Sector Employers at 2025 Women In Tech Employer Awards

Process

We know your time is valuable so our application and selection process is just two stages:

• Apply: complete your application on Civil Service Jobs. There'll be full instructions when you click through.
• Interview: a two-stage interview online.

Click APPLY for more information and to start your application.