At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead the design and architecture of innovative Java/Spring Boot solutions for impactful public sector projects.
- Company: Join Methods, a dynamic IT consultancy transforming the public sector in the UK.
- Benefits: Enjoy competitive salary, wellness support, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Collaborative culture with fun social events and a commitment to charitable causes.
- Why this job: Make a real difference in society while developing your technical skills in a supportive environment.
- Qualifications: Strong experience in Java, Spring Boot, and technical architecture within regulated environments.
The predicted salary is between 67500 - 82500 £ per year.
About Methods: Methods is a 100M+ IT Services Consultancy who has partnered with a range of central government departments and agencies to transform the way the public sector operates in the UK. Established over 30 years ago and UK-based, we apply our skills in transformation, delivery, and collaboration from across the Methods Group, to create end-to-end business and technical solutions that are people-centred, safe, and designed for the future. Our human touch sets us apart from other consultancies, system integrators and software houses - with people, technology, and data at the heart of who we are, we believe in creating value and sustainability through everything we do for our clients, staff, communities, and the planet.
Overview: Methods is looking for an experienced Technical Architect with a strong Java and Spring Boot background to support customer-specific delivery workstreams and wider digital transformation projects. The role requires hands-on architecture experience across modern service design, integration, cloud-hosted platforms and delivery governance. The successful candidate will help shape robust, maintainable and scalable services, working closely with engineering teams, delivery leads, product stakeholders and enterprise architecture functions to ensure technical decisions align with programme outcomes, GDS expectations and wider organisational standards.
Requirements
- Architecture & Technical Leadership
- Define and communicate technical architecture for Java/Spring Boot services and supporting platform components.
- Produce high-quality architecture artefacts including HLDs, LLDs, roadmaps, integration patterns, sequence diagrams and data models.
- Lead technical design governance, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture principles, GDS Service Standard and delivery best practice.
- Provide technical assurance across delivery teams, suppliers and stakeholders.
- Own and articulate technical requirements through governance and assurance processes.
- Support architectural decision-making across discovery, alpha, beta and live service phases.
- Translate business and operational needs into clear, deliverable technical designs.
- Java / Spring Boot Service Design
- Provide architecture direction for Java and Spring Boot applications, APIs, microservices and event-driven services.
- Define reusable engineering patterns for service design, configuration, observability, error handling, resilience and maintainability.
- Guide teams on Spring Boot best practice, including dependency management, REST API design, testing approaches and integration patterns.
- Support decisions around modularity, service boundaries, domain modelling and data ownership.
- Review designs and implementation approaches to ensure services are scalable, supportable and fit for live operation.
- Platform Design & Integration
- Oversee integration patterns with upstream and downstream systems, including APIs, messaging, event streams and batch interfaces.
- Collaborate with developers, platform engineers, test engineers, data specialists and cyber teams to deliver robust solutions.
- Support cloud-hosted delivery patterns, CI/CD, infrastructure integration and operational monitoring.
- Ensure solutions are designed for resilience, performance, maintainability and operational support.
- Governance, Standards & Best Practice
- Develop, document and promote technical standards, reusable patterns and operational best practice.
- Ensure alignment with relevant legislation, information governance requirements and internal technology standards.
- Establish repeatable architecture controls and decision records.
- Support training, coaching and enabling teams to adopt consistent engineering practice.
- Technical Delivery Support
- Provide expert guidance to delivery teams on architecture constraints, recommended patterns and implementation options.
- Support troubleshooting, risk identification, technical assessments and proof-of-concept design activities.
- Contribute to sprint ceremonies and delivery planning to ensure architecture is embedded across the lifecycle.
- Work with delivery teams to balance pragmatic delivery with long-term maintainability.
Essential Skills & Experience
- Strong experience as a Technical Architect or Lead Engineer within large public-sector, government or regulated environments.
- Strong background in Java and Spring Boot service design and delivery.
- Experience designing REST APIs, microservices and integration patterns.
- Good understanding of event-driven architecture, messaging and asynchronous processing.
- Experience with cloud-hosted platforms, CI/CD, monitoring and operational support patterns.
- Ability to define technical policy, governance frameworks and engineering best practice.
- Good understanding of information architecture, data flows and lifecycle management.
- Working knowledge of GDS Service Standard, public-sector delivery governance and secure design principles.
- Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills, including presenting complex technical concepts clearly.
- Experience working with multidisciplinary agile delivery teams.
Desirable Skills
- Experience with Azure or AWS-hosted services.
- Experience with Kubernetes, Docker or containerised service delivery.
- Knowledge of PostgreSQL or other relational databases.
- Experience with Kafka, Azure Service Bus or similar messaging technologies.
- Familiarity with HMCTS, MOJ, justice, policing or wider government platforms.
- Understanding of security assurance, threat modelling, RBAC, audit logging and data protection controls.
- Experience supporting services through alpha, beta, live and continuous improvement phases.
Methods is passionate about its people; we want our colleagues to develop the things they are good at and enjoy. By joining us you can expect:
- Autonomy to develop and grow your skills and experience.
- Be part of exciting project work that is making a difference in society.
- Strong, inspiring and thought-provoking leadership.
- A supportive and collaborative environment.
Benefits
- Development access to LinkedIn Learning, a management development programme and training.
- Wellness 24/7 Confidential employee assistance programme.
- Social – Breakfast Tuesdays, Thirsty Thursdays and Pizza on the last Thursday of each month as well as commitment to charitable causes.
- Time off 25 days a year.
- Pension Salary Exchange Scheme with 4% employer contribution and 5% employee contribution.
- Discretionary Company Bonus based on company and individual performance.
- Life Assurance of 4 times base salary.
- Private Medical Insurance which is non-contributory (spouse and dependants included).
- Worldwide Travel Insurance which is non-contributory (spouse and dependants included).
Technical Architect employer: Methods Consulting
Methods is an exceptional employer, offering a dynamic work environment where innovation meets collaboration. With a strong focus on employee growth through access to training and development resources, as well as a supportive culture that encourages learning from mistakes, Methods empowers its team to make a meaningful impact in the public sector. Located in the UK, employees enjoy a range of benefits including generous time off, wellness programmes, and a commitment to social causes, making it a rewarding place to build a career.
