Job summary
The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.
Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:
- joining up public sector services
- harnessing the power of AI for the public good
- strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
- elevating leadership and investing in talent
- funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
- committing to transparency and driving accountability
We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.
We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.
The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.
Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need.
The GOV.UK One Login Programme represents a once in a generation opportunity to simplify and widen access to all digital government services. Sitting at the heart of the government, we are building one simple, safe and secure way for users to log in and prove who they are that will work across all government services.
Effective identity assurance is central to digital transformation and GOV.UK One Login enables people to prove who they are online, with the necessary level of confidence to access and use particular services. Our technology stack runs on AWS, using serverless compute and storage products. Backend services are written in TypeScript/Node.js and JVM technologies. Web applications also use TypeScript.
Job details
As a Technical Architect you’ll:
- design technical services or plan system integrations, selecting platforms and technologies to meet project requirements and user needs
- provide technical leadership and consultancy to both internal and external development teams, ensuring designs & solutions are fit for purpose, whilst meeting time and budget constraints
- build and maintain technical roadmaps, looking ahead for future opportunities or blockers, and ensuring decisions by development teams align with the strategy
- encourage communication across multiple development teams to identify strategic requirements and dependencies
- help develop services by contributing code, testing technologies and producing rapid prototypes
- be involved in the wider software engineering community, including cyber security and operations teams, identifying good practices to adopt and sharing your experiences, eg through blog posts, tech talks at conferences etc
- enable a positive technical culture, applying agile methods to development and completing quality assurance practices
- ensure delivery is aligned with the GDS Way and work with others across GDS to keep that up to date and relevant
- help colleagues with their career development, coaching and managing more junior staff members
Person specification
We’re interested in people who have:
- experience creating technical designs and building secure, scalable, user focussed systems using appropriate technologies characterised by risk, impact and complexity
- strong software development, application and/or data architecture experience, with good knowledge of cloud technologies, open source technologies, testing, and software development (Javascript, Java, Python or Ruby)
- understanding of how to influence senior management and communicate with both technical and non-technical audiences
- understanding of agile environments, continual delivery techniques, devops cultures and governance in agile, multidisciplinary teams
- understanding of how to make architectural decisions and manage priorities in a fast, user centric, environment
- experience contributing towards the development of architectural strategies, best practices, standards and policies
If you meet a few of those criteria but think that you might not meet every last one then don’t let that stop you from submitting an application.
Benefits
There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:
- flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
- a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%
- 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
- an extra day off for the King’s birthday
- an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
- career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
- a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
- job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
- advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
- death in service benefits
- cycle to work scheme and facilities
- access to an employee discounts scheme
- 10 learning days per year
- volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
- access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning
Any move to Government Digital Service from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk
Office attendance
The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period. DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).
Artificial intelligence
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 (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Selection process details
The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:
- a simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and cover letter of up to 750 words. Important tip - please ensure that your cover letter includes how you meet the skills and experience listed in the “person specification” section above
- a 30 minute phone screen conducted via Google Meet
- a 90 minute video interview including a 30 minute technical exercise at the start of the interview.
In order to assist candidates with this role, we will be holding a virtual recruitment event on Monday 1st June 2026 at 1:00pm - 2:00pm to go through the role in more detail. To attend the virtual recruitment event please use the link below and use the following details to join:
Join: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/378519982396849?p=RKwoOGSqFH2R4ED7RV
Meeting ID: 378 519 982 396 849 Passcode: uR6Sg2a6
In the event we receive a high volume of applications, we will conduct the initial sift against the lead criteria which is:
- experience creating technical designs and building secure, scalable, user focussed systems using appropriate technologies characterised by risk, impact and complexity
In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.
For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:
- seeing the big picture
- making effective decisions
- communicating and influencing
- working together
- managing a quality service
- leadership
We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Government Digital and Data Capability Framework for the Technical Architecthttps://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/role/technical-architect#technical-architectrole:
- Architect for the whole context
- Architecture communication
- Community collaboration
- Making architectural decisions
- Strategy design
- Technical design throughout the life cycle
Want to know more about who Government Digital and Data are? Click Here
Recruitment Timeline
Virtual recruitment event: Monday 1st June 2026 at 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Sift completion: week commencing Monday 8th June 2026
Phone screens: starting from Thursday 18th June 2026
Panel interviews: starting week commencing Monday 29th June 2026
Additional information
Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.
A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.
Please note that this role requires SC clearance, which would normally need 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years. This is not an absolute requirement, but supplementary checks may be needed where individuals have not lived in the UK for that period. This may mean your security clearance (and therefore your appointment) will take longer or, in some cases, not be possible.
For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers.
Sponsorship
DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.
Feedback
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window). See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Nationality requirements
This job is broadly open to the following groups:
- UK nationals
- nationals of the Republic of Ireland
- nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
- individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
- Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) 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 (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
Diversity and Inclusion
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
Recruitment team
Further information
If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact [email protected] in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you can contact the Civil Service Commission by email: [email protected] Or in writing: Civil Service Commission, Room G/8 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ.
