Principal Technical Architect

Description:

Job title – Principal Technical Architect

Profession- Development & Operations

Directorate – Technology

Full Time equivalent - 37.5 hours

No of Roles – 1

Contract Type – Permanent

Location – Hybrid

UKHSA operates a hybrid working model where business needs allow. This provides us with greater flexibility about how and where we work, to get the best from our workforce. As a hybrid worker, you will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of your contractual working hours (approximately 3 days a week pro rata,(averaged over a month) working at one of UKHSA's locations (Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, and London). Specialist or regional roles will be based at the appropriate UKHSA site. For certain roles, some additional flexibility may be possible, which will be agreed upon with the hiring manager based on individual requirements and business needs.

Working Pattern – Full Time /Hybrid Working/ Flexible Working

Grade & Salary – Grade 6. National banding - £65,302 - £75,129 per annum. Outer London - £67,288- £76,967 per annum. Inner London - £69,275 - £78,805 per annum

This role comes with a Market Pay Supplement of up to £15,000

The internal roles rules apply to existing Civil Servants, i.e. level transfers move on current salary or the pay range minimum, transfers on promotion move to new pay range minimum or receive 10% increase. Either case is determined by whichever is the highest.

This role is to be appointed under Civil Service Terms & Conditions.

Closing Date – 14/04/2024. 23:55pm. Unfortunately, late applications will not be considered

Interview Date – W/C 29/04/2024 Please note, these dates are subject to change.

Overview of Job

The Principal Technical Architect will lead a small team of Technical Architects working across multiple projects or teams on problems that require broad architectural thinking. They will provide leadership in establishing UK Health Security Agency’s approach to technical architecture and guide projects in using principles, standards and tooling to deliver new systems and services for citizens.

As Principal Technical Architect, you will provide assurance for architectural designs across the agency, making sure that technical designs fit into the broader strategy for the agency and wider government. You will be responsible for leading the production of technical designs in-line with appropriate government standards including the service standard and the technology code of practice. You will also explore the benefits of cross-government alignment of systems and services.

You will support the delivery of the UKHSA Technology Strategy, and feed into sub-strategies including our Integration and Platform strategies. You will be responsible for producing designs through a defined governance structure, leading the identification of best practice, and promoting the use of reusable patterns and standards. You will build effective partnerships with diverse teams across multiple locations and technologies and provide mentoring and leadership to other architects.

Main Duties of the Job

Your main day to day activities will be:

Leading a small, specialist team of technical architects

Creating technical designs and identifying appropriate technical solutions aligned to user needs and UKHSA/government standards.

Working closely with product managers, business analysts, delivery managers and others as part of cross-functional agile delivery teams

Overseeing or leading the technical evaluation of proposals from third party suppliers, as part of UKHSA’s procurement processes

Working closely with external suppliers to ensure that their architectures are robust, scalable, open and secure and meet other internal standards

Ensuring that new products and services are ‘secure by design’

Working with and across other areas of DDaT and the business to develop and document technical designs for the integration and implementation of any solution

Presenting and championing recommendations to senior stakeholders across the agency, communicating complicated technical concepts concisely to non-technical users.

Anticipating and advising on future technology that presents opportunities for the organisation

Managing, coaching and mentoring other technical architects and members of the wider technology team

Forging close working relationships across other government and health technical architecture communities, exploring the benefits of cross-government alignment

We pride ourselves as being an employer of choice, where Everyone Matters promoting equality opportunity to actively encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce.

UKHSA ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all our staff and stakeholders. To create, nurture and sustain an inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our workforce and wider communities. We do this through celebrating and protecting differences by removing barriers and promoting equity and equality of opportunity for all.

Essential Criteria:

Please provide the experience/knowledge that is essential for the candidate to carry out the role

The following technical experience is essential to this role:

· Development and application architecture experience, with good knowledge of open-source technologies and at least one programming language

· Working with external suppliers to ensure that their system architectures are robust, scalable, open and secure, with appropriate overall system design and integration points/APIs, to deliver a high-quality user experience

· Working in dynamic fast paced agile environments, collaboratively and openly with others using continual delivery techniques and DevOps cultures

· Managing and delivering complex technology solutions within time, cost and quality targets

· Designing secure and scalable services within common public cloud platforms (particularly Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services) and related technologies (for example, elastic scaling, platform as a service and networking architecture in the cloud)

· Leading and influencing highly specialised technical teams, including steering decision making and improving how those decisions are made and technical systems are operated

· Developing or directly influencing enterprise technology strategies supported by user research, balancing technology against cost, user experience, operational/support experience and strategic goals

· Defining, owning and contributing to the technical roadmap and strategy and demonstrating a detailed knowledge of technical requirements to implement, design and manage associated technologies

Desirable:

· Technology Code of Practice and the Service Standard and how these apply to enterprise IT within an organisation and across government

· Working with senior management to define directorate priorities based on medium- long term strategies and organisational direction

Selection Process

You will be required to complete an application form. This will be assessed and sifted in line with the essential criteria.

This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours and Experience

Stage 1: Application & Sift

As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide a Statement of Suitability in no more than 750 words providing examples of how you meet the essential criteria. It should also detail what you and your experience can bring to the role. We suggest using the STAR (situation, task, action, result) method to demonstrate real-life examples for the specified essential criteria. Please note, only information provided within the stated word count will be considered.

If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to interview

Stage 2: Panel Interview

This role is a two stage interview process. The first stage will consist of a technical test if successful the second interview will test the following behaviours:

* Managing a Quality Service

* Leadership

* Developing Self & Others

Reserve List:

Candidates who pass the interview criteria but are not offered a post will be kept on a reserve list for 12 months and may be contacted if similar roles become available.

If you are interviewed for the post and do not meet the required threshold for the specified grade, your application may be assessed against a similar, lower grade role and you may be offered the post should one be available.

Benefits

• Civil Service Pension Contribution of 27%

• Learning and development tailored to your role

• An environment with flexible working options

• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity

• Range of health and wellbeing support

Any move to UKHSA 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.

DBS - People working with government systems must complete Basic Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) checks which includes a disclosure and barring security check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed for this role is BPSS however there may be a requirement for this role to be SC cleared and you should familiarise yourself with the criteria of security clearance