A bit about us...

The Home Office National Communications Data Service (NCDS) provides access for law enforcement agencies and wider public authorities to Communications Data used in their investigations. NCDS provides cutting-edge operational capabilities and services, hosted on an AWS public cloud platform, to support counter terrorism, tackle serious and organised crime, and protect vulnerable people.

As the Principal Technical Architect, you are responsible for the architecture and engineering services provided to NCDS. This includes leading a team of architects, management of suppliers and budget responsibility. You will also be part of the Policing & Public Protection Technologies CTO management team, contributing to the architecture across national policing systems and ensuring alignment with the broader strategic technology direction for the Home Office.

What you'll be doing

• Owning the creation and delivery of the technical strategy for your area of work, include brokering decisions and bridging technical and business issues by weighing up risk, complexity impact and deliverability
• Working collaboratively with partners in the Home Office and end user organisations to ensure alignment of strategies and implementation
• Leading the NCDS architecture and engineering teams comprised of Civil Servants and external suppliers. This includes development of the team and responsibility for the budgets for the suppliers and infrastructure that provide the services.
• Presenting recommendations for technologies or improvements to enhance systems to support project goals clearly based on technical knowledge and analysis of telecommunications and IT systems
• Leading the design and review processes for new solution and services, translating technical concepts between systems engineering, delivery management and service management
• Creating detailed plans for the integration of new systems architecture into existing infrastructure, considering the broader context and strategies of the organisation
• Leading the development of the architectural practice within NCDS, ensuring a coherent and consistent strategy across cyber, cloud, data centre, storage, network, mobile and the user experience of infrastructure.

About you

You'll have a demonstrable passion for Technical Architecture, with the following skills or proven experience in:

• evidencing strong technical leadership qualities, with a passion for delivering leading edge designs and inspiring a culture of technical excellence and innovative solution design
• anticipating and advising on future technology changes that present opportunities for the product or programme
• leading the complex landscapes of technologies, 3rd party suppliers (leading the procurement process), internal and cross-government teams
• leading technology teams to adhere to good engineering principles from architecture through to development
• managing and delivering complex technology solutions within time, cost and quality targets, ensuring solutions are robust, resilient, and appropriately implemented, tested and documented
• defining, owning and contributing to the technical roadmap and strategy

Please note:

• Successful candidates can join the post with an SC level clearance but have the willingness to undergo Developed Vetting (DV) security clearance. This is required as you would require long-term, frequent access to information up to Top Secret. Please note that DV clearance can take several months to be authorised. The Home Office is within their right to refuse employment to an individual for refusing to undergo essential security vetting.

Please see full advert for our full range of benefits on offer for the role.

We encourage applications from people from the widest possible diversity of backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. We particularly welcome applications from women, people with disabilities and LGBT+ as they are currently under-represented at this grade level.

Appointments will be made on merit based on fair and open competition.