Associate Enterprise Architect Ref. 3657 in Cheltenham

Closing Date - 23:00 on Tuesday 12th May 2026

Salary: £55,758 to £63,948 comprising a basic salary of £53,000 and a concessionary payment of £2,758. The exact salary offered within this range will depend on your skills and experience. An additional Skills Payment is available once your skills level is confirmed, £3,822 for Level 1 or £8,190 for Level 2. Once in role, there may also be opportunities to qualify for further allowances and additional skills-related payments.

Flexible working: We recognise the importance of a healthy work‑life balance and offer a range of working patterns, including full‑time, part‑time, and compressed hours. While most of our work is carried out on‑site due to its sensitive nature, occasional home‑working may be possible depending on business requirements. We also support flexible start and finish times to help you manage your personal and professional commitments.

About us: GCHQ is an intelligence, cyber and security agency with a mission to keep the UK safe. We use cutting‑edge technology, ingenuity and partnerships to identify, analyse and disrupt threats. Working with our intelligence partners, we protect the UK from terrorism, cyber‑attacks and espionage. At GCHQ, you’ll do varied and fascinating work in a supportive and inclusive environment that puts the emphasis on teamwork.

The role: As an Associate Enterprise Architect, you’ll work with support from senior architects to develop and deliver GCHQ’s enterprise architecture. By translating organisational goals into actionable architectural strategies, you’ll lead design initiatives, proactively identify risks and constraints, and optimise environments across technology, data, and processes to deliver impactful solutions. The nature of our work means our technology must be cutting edge and is often unique to our mission. This role offers extensive learning opportunities and plenty of development challenges. Mentored by one of our Enterprise Architects, you’ll collaborate with delivery teams and stakeholders throughout the organisation, applying best practice and emerging approaches while growing your own skills. Every day, you’ll help teams deliver mission‑critical work as you contribute to designs, documentation and analysis. Working with technical and business teams, you’ll align solutions to their needs and our organisational strategies. You’ll work with other architects, engineers, project managers and delivery leads across GCHQ. Occasionally, you’ll liaise with external suppliers and partners. Occasional travel to sites across the UK may be required to work closely with colleagues from all areas of the organisation.

About you: You’ll have practical experience working as an Associate Enterprise Architect and a strong support for our shared mission. You’ll have contributed to architectural work across technology, data, digital or business change initiatives – supporting designs, analysing impacts or documenting architectures. Your working knowledge of enterprise architecture comes from real delivery environments, where decisions are shaped by organisational goals, constraints and trade‑offs. Working with or deputising for senior architects has helped you build confidence in forming and explaining architectural viewpoints. Curiosity and a willingness to learn are essential. Architectural standards, principles and governance are familiar territory for you, and you’ve worked with at least one modern architecture framework or standard (e.g., ArchiMate, TOGAF, Zachman or MODAF) to guide your work. Sound communication and problem‑solving skills are vital. You can analyse requirements, shape solutions at the right detail, and clearly articulate risks and trade‑offs to both technical and non‑technical audiences. You collaborate well, adapt as priorities shift and manage your time effectively.

Training and development: We offer an inclusive and supportive working environment, providing you with a full induction into GCHQ so you can learn more about who we are, what we do, and where your role fits in. You’ll receive formal and on‑the‑job training, along with all the support you need to thrive. We encourage continuous professional development and are committed to giving you the space and capacity to develop, innovate and experiment. Typically, we expect 20% of your time to be dedicated to personal development and supporting others. We invest in your skills and learning preferences – from books, study, courses and conferences to stretch work supported by your team. You’ll be encouraged to drive and shape your own personal development and have access to learning opportunities tailored to your role. Costs for professional qualifications and certifications are covered, and we provide the time and support you need to gain them.

Rewards and benefits: You’ll receive a starting salary of £55,758 to £63,948, including a concessionary payment of £2,658. The final amount depends on your skills and experience, plus other benefits including:

• 25 days’ annual leave automatically rising to 30 days after 5 years’ service, and an additional 10.5 days of public and privilege holidays
• Opportunities to be recognised through our employee performance scheme
• An interest‑free season ticket loan (travel and parking)
• A cycle‑to‑work scheme
• Facilities such as a gym, restaurant and on‑site coffee bars (at some locations)
• Paid parental and adoption leave

Equal opportunities: At GCHQ, diversity and inclusion are critical to our mission. To protect the UK, we need a truly diverse workforce that reflects the society we serve. This includes diversity in every sense of the word: different backgrounds, ages, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ways of thinking and people with disabilities or neurodivergent conditions. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including those from under‑represented groups such as women, people from an ethnic minority background, people with disabilities and those from low socio‑economic backgrounds.

We’re Disability Confident: GCHQ is proud to have achieved Leader status within the Department for Work and Pensions’ Disability Confident scheme. This is aimed at encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people. Being Disability Confident, we offer a fair and proportionate number of person‑to‑person interviews to any candidate who self‑identifies as disabled and meets the essential criteria for the role, our ‘Offer of Interview’ (OOI). We provide a wide range of support throughout the recruitment process to enable you to do your best.