{"id":2922165,"url":"https://alion.io/job/gca-senior-technical-architect","title":"Senior Technical Architect","company":{"id":1814455,"name":"GCA","domain":"gca.gov.uk","url":"https://alion.io/company/gca-gov-uk","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":null},"role":"HR","role_family":"HR","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Liverpool, United Kingdom","Norwich, United Kingdom","Newport, United Kingdom","Birmingham, United Kingdom","Glasgow, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":59877,"max":69457,"currency":"GBP","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":92430},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-20T12:29:42Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-20","last_verified_at":"2026-10-23T08:53:29Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":3,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":3},"description":"Job description\nJob Title: Senior Technical Architect\nBand: Band 5\nSalary: £59,877 - £69,457\n(plus allowance up to £9,000 per annum depending on technical assessment)\nAvailable Locations: Liverpool, Newport, Norwich or Birmingham.\nThe following locations listed below are restricted to contracted GCA staff already based in one of these offices: London, Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester or York.\nExternal applicants are not eligible for these sites. If you select one of these locations as an external applicant your application will unfortunately be withdrawn.\nContract Type: Permanent\nHours: Full Time\nClosing Date: 09/11/26\nInterview Date(s): 1st - 4th Dec (subject to change)\nInsight into GCA - Webinar \nWatch our Webinar on the above link and gain valuable insight into GCA and our recruitment processes.\nReady to step up from merely managing systems to designing the future of our entire technology ecosystem? We're seeking a Senior Technical Architect to drive our next generation of scalable, resilient, and innovative solutions. You will directly translate business strategy into technical reality, ensuring every architectural decision delivers maximum value for the nation. Do you possess the deep technical mastery to mentor a high-performing engineering team while navigating the complex trade-offs between speed, cost, and quality?\nJob Summary\nWe seek a visionary Senior Technical Architect to own, evolve, and drive our enterprise-wide DDaT technical strategy and architecture. Operating within a unified, high-performing team (scaling up to 5) that blends Enterprise and Technical Architecture expertise, you will serve as a defining authority, responsible for architecting scalable, secure, and resilient solutions that directly impact public service delivery. In this role, you will lead technical governance, mentor engineering teams, and translate national strategy into robust technical reality. While we leverage supplemental support from preferred partners, our internal architects always maintain full control-establishing the critical guardrails and steering the strategic direction of our complex digital transformation journey.\nKey Accountabilities:\nOwn the Technical Vision: Define the 'how' for all strategic change, ensuring solutions align with the long-term enterprise architecture.\nLead Technical Governance: Champion and implement architectural standards, including Secure by Design, across high-impact projects.\nMentor and Guide Teams: Provide technical leadership and guidance to engineering and architecture teams on complex design decisions.\nManage Architectural Risk: Identify and clearly articulate technical debt and architectural risks early in the investment process.\n Ensure System Integrity: Verify that new High-Level Designs (HLDs) are scalable, secure, and fit within the broader CCS technology ecosystem.\nDrive Strategic Alignment: Collaborate with Business Architecture to translate strategic goals into practical, resilient technical blueprints.\n Review Supplier Capability: Assess the technical viability and integration methods of solutions proposed by market suppliers (e.g., for the Self-Serve programme).\nDocument Architecture: Lead the creation of clear, concise architectural documentation suitable for senior leadership.\nEssential Criteria (to be assessed at application stage):\n Enterprise Architecture Governance: Proven experience in defining and enforcing architectural standards (e.g., through an Architecture Review Board or similar forum) to manage technical debt and ensure system integrity.\n Secure & Scalable Design: Deep expertise in designing and leading the implementation of highly scalable, resilient, and secure solutions, including applying Secure by Design principles to large-scale platforms (e.g., IDAM or high-volume transactional services).\n Strategic Technical Alignment: Ability to translate abstract business or policy strategy into concrete, actionable technical blueprints, and effectively articulate risks to senior stakeholders (e.g., GCF architecture presentation at 'level zero').\n Complex Integration & Trade-offs: Demonstrated experience navigating and making complex technical trade-offs (e.g., speed vs. cost vs. quality) and defining integration strategy for major enterprise systems.\nLeadership Experience in providing technical mentorship and coaching to technical teams.\nSuccess Profiles (to be assessed at interview):\nExperience\nTechnical skills (presentation sent 24 hours in advance)\nArchitecture communication\nArchitect for the whole context\nYou will be assessed against the following behaviours:\nLeadership\nSeeing the big picture\nCommunicating & influencing\n(A link to the Civil Service Success Profiles Framework is provided below)\nSuccess Profiles Framework\nValuing our people:\nCompetitive salary \nGenerous pension scheme\nA discretionary non-contractual performance related bonus \nWorking remotely in addition to working in advertised office location\nFlexi time scheme (available for B1-B6)\nMinimum 25 days annual leave to a maximum service related 30 days excluding bank holidays\nWant to make a difference? Find out more about the rewarding work that we do in ourcandidate pack.\nThe Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan and theCivil Service D&I Strategy.\nWe want to make our recruitment process accessible to everyone, so if there is any way that we can support you, please contact \nWorking flexibly, delivering outcomes\nGCA operates a smarter working model that balances flexibility with collaboration. Successful candidates are expected to spend at least 26 days per quarter (approximately 2 days per week, pro-rata) at their contracted office, another GCA site, or off-site for meetings. For the remainder of the time, you may work from home or another suitable location that meets business needs.\nArtificial Intelligence\nArtificial 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 ourcandidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.\nSelection Process\nA reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, which the Civil Service may use to fill future suitably similar vacancies across government for candidates who are considered appointable following interview. Should you be placed on a reserve list and want to be removed please contact .\nPlease note that as part of this recruitment process, if you are unsuccessful at the interview stage but are close to the benchmark score you may be considered for and offered a role at a lower pay band within the same job family.\n#GCAIND\nWorking for the Civil Service\nThe Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.\nComplaints Procedure\nOur recruitment processes are underpinned by the principle of selection for appointment on merit on the basis of fair and open competition as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles details of which can be found athttps://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/recruitment-principles/\nIf you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact  in the first instance.\nIf you remain unsatisfied with the response you receive you can then contact the Civil Service Commission at \nInternal candidates should apply using their Workday account. Please use the careers hub for your application.","description_format":"text","description_chars":7954,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Annual leave"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Government","Digital Government"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-20T12:29:42Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":2,"expected_fill_days":31,"reasons":["conf:2","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-23T05:54:15Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":92430,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/gca-senior-technical-architect","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/gca-senior-technical-architect.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-23T17:39:22Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":26834,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-24T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1814455},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1814455"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fgca-senior-technical-architect"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fgca-senior-technical-architect"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fgca-senior-technical-architect"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/gca-senior-technical-architect\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fgca-senior-technical-architect"}]}