Head of Service Architecture & Tooling in Bristol

The Home Office is here to make our country safer. As well as working to reduce crime and enforce the law, we also work to protect the most vulnerable and have a proud history of providing refuge to those who have been displaced or are seeking asylum. Whether it is fighting crime, protecting our borders or combating slavery, the Home Office is at the cutting edge of public policy in this country, and our work is some of the most challenging and rewarding in government.

The Public Safety Group’s role is to keep the public safe by cutting crime, disrupting the highest harm criminals, protecting the vulnerable and ensuring that our police service is as efficient and effective as it can be in delivering front line public services. We work with our partners in other government departments, local government and the voluntary sector to develop and implement policy, provide funding, and deliver legislation.

This role offers you the opportunity to join an exciting, fast-paced environment working hard to deliver ministerial commitments for the benefit of the public. As Head of Service Architecture and Tooling, you will be a key decision maker and liaise with the most senior internal and third party stakeholders who are involved in some of the most cutting-edge skills and topics within information technology.

You will lead a matrix team of civil service and contract Service Design and Transition managers. You will design and deliver services that support business needs reusing existing service components where appropriate; that are proportionate and affordable; and span multiple suppliers, components, and support levels. You will lead on the production of comprehensive service designs, incorporating the entire end-to-end eco-system that includes business requirements, wider standards, enterprise services capabilities, and external suppliers and consumers. You will also lead on programmes and projects of work, acting as a subject matter expert and ensuring the design meets user and wider Home Office needs.

Key Responsibilities:

• Leading the development of end-to-end service design for new and evolving services, ensuring alignment with organisational strategy and the wider service ecosystem.
• Providing strategic oversight of service design and transition activity, ensuring services are supportable, sustainable, and deliver value.
• Engaging senior stakeholders across ESMCP, suppliers, and partner organisations to shape requirements, influence decisions, and resolve complex delivery challenges.
• Overseeing the production and quality of key service artefacts, including Service Design Packages, ensuring consistency with best practice and governance standards.
• Leading service readiness and transition planning for new services, ensuring effective integration into live operations and alignment with existing capabilities.
• Driving continuous improvement across service management, identifying opportunities to modernise processes, improve tooling, and increase automation.
• Establishing and promoting best practice within the IT Operations and service management community, building organisational capability.
• Maintaining oversight of the transition pipeline, forecasting demand and ensuring effective resource planning.
• Leading, developing and managing a multi-disciplinary team, fostering a high-performing and inclusive culture, supporting professional development and succession planning.

You may be required to undertake other duties within the scope of the grade and their skills, competence, and training. The role will transition over time from hands-on delivery to a predominantly assurance-focused function, with greater emphasis on oversight and performance.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Providing strategic and technical leadership, driving high-quality, innovative service solutions and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
• Navigating complex delivery environments, working across supplier networks, internal teams, and wider government stakeholders to achieve outcomes.
• Delivering robust, resilient services within time, cost and quality constraints, ensuring effective implementation, testing and documentation.
• Shaping and defining standards, contributing to service strategies and technical roadmaps aligned to organisational priorities.
• Anticipating future technology developments and advising on opportunities to enhance services and capability.
• Communicating clearly and influencing senior stakeholders, adapting style and approach to meet diverse needs and manage expectations.
• Applying a flexible, pragmatic approach to delivery, operating across agile, DevOps and traditional methodologies where appropriate.

Desirable Criteria:

• Drive process improvement, establish best practice, promoting consistency, innovation and continuous improvement across teams, with strong knowledge of Lean, Agile and DevOps in product-centric delivery environments.
• Manage end-to-end employee lifecycle while applying solid understanding of ITIL functions and core service management methodologies.

Qualifications:

• ITIL foundation.
• Relevant project/programme management qualifications (Agile/Prince 2/DevOps/SIAM/Lean) or a willingness to acquire them.
• Strategy and Architecture: Advice and Guidance - Methods and Tools (METL) – level 4.
• Change and Transformation: Change Implementation - Project Management (PRMG) – level 4; Change Analysis - Business Situation Analysis (BUSA) – level 5.
• Delivery and Operation: Service Management - Service Acceptance (SEAC) – level 4; Technology Management - Technology Service Management (ITMG) – level 5.
• Relationships and Engagement: Stakeholder Management - Stakeholder Relationship Management (RLMT) – level 4.

Behaviours:

• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service
• Seeing the Big Picture

Technical skills:

• Service Design and Transition
• Service Management
• Tooling and Asset Management

Benefits:

• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%.
• In-year reward scheme for one-off or sustained exceptional personal or team achievements.
• 25 days annual leave on appointment, rising with service to 30 days.
• Eight days of public holidays, plus one additional privilege day.
• Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working.

Things you need to know:

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, applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

Selection process details:

This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths, Experience and Technical skills. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, drives up performance and improves diversity and inclusivity.

Application – by 28th August 2026. As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete: CV Personal Statement (maximum 1250 words). Your CV should consist of your career history, qualifications and skills, including any key achievements in each role. Your CV will be scored against the experience required for the role as noted within the essential criteria. The Personal Statement should be aligned to and demonstrate how you meet the skills and experience set out in the essential criteria, detailed in the job description.

Sift – 7th September 2026. The sift will be held on the Personal Statement and CV.

Interview – 28th September 2026. If you are successful at sift stage, you will be invited to an interview that will be Behaviours and Strength based questions. In addition, candidates will be asked to prepare a 10-minute presentation that will be delivered at interview. The presentation question/scenario will be disclosed closer to the interviews.

Problems during the application process: If you experience problems accessing this advert, or you think you’ve made a mistake on an initial application, please contact hocandidates.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk, including the vacancy reference, at least two working days before the vacancy closes.

Location: You will only be able to select a single location preference so please ensure this is a location that you are prepared to travel to. If you are offered a role at your preferred location and you decline, your application will be withdrawn.

Reserve List: A reserve list may be held for a period of up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made. There is no guarantee that being held on a reserve list will lead to a job offer.

Standards: All Civil Servants are expected to comply with the Civil Service Code, and its core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality.

Additional Security Checks: Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check and meet the security requirements before they can be appointed.

Nationality requirements: This job is broadly open to UK nationals, nationals of the Republic of Ireland, nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK, and nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS).

Working for the Civil Service: The Civil Service Code 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.

Diversity and Inclusion: The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found.

Apply and further information: This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative.