Job description
Job Title: Senior Enterprise Architect
Band: Band 5
Salary: £59,877 - £66,869
(plus DDaT allowance up to £9,000 per annum depending on technical assessment)
Location: Liverpool, Newport, Birmingham, Norwich
Contract Type: Permanent
Hours: Full Time
Number of positions: 2
Closing Date: 23/03/2026
Interview Date(s): W/C 13th April (subject to change)
Crown Commercial Service (CCS) will become Government Commercial Agency (GCA) on 1 April 2026. Please visit our website for further details.
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Call to action
Ready to move beyond system design and drive the strategic roadmap for a national digital estate? We are seeking 2 Senior Enterprise Architects to translate high-level business strategy into a resilient, scalable technical reality. If you’re prepared to own the architectural governance for products impacting millions of users, we want to hear from you. You will navigate the critical trade-offs between speed, cost, and quality while influencing technical mastery across the organization.
Job Summary
We seek a visionary Senior Enterprise Architect ready to own and evolve our enterprise-wide DDaT strategy and architecture. You will be the defining authority, responsible for translating strategic business goals into coherent technical roadmaps and ensuring architectural alignment across the organisation. Lead governance (including Technical Debt and Investment decisions), mentor architecture teams, and drive our complex digital transformation journey by ensuring solutions are highly scalable, secure, and resilient for public service delivery.
Key Accountabilities
1. Strategic Vision & Roadmap Delivery
Convert the annual business plan into a clear, step-by-step blueprint for the future technology environment (Target State Architecture or TSA). You will manage the plans for moving from the current system to the future one, specifically for major initiatives, to make sure all projects are connected and support the overall business strategy.
2. Governance & Assurance Leadership
You will be the top technical voice on the Architecture Review Board (ARB). Your role is to manage the 'Front Door' review process, making sure every single new project is checked for architectural soundness and fit before it can be approved for budget.
3. Investment & Technical Debt Management
You will ensure that every strategic bid includes a ring-fenced "remediation budget" (typically 15-20%) to prevent the long-term erosion of the estate.
4. Senior Leadership Communication ("Level 0")
Produce and maintain the "Level Zero" Architecture Map—a simplified, one-page executive view of the CCS technology estate used for ExCo and Board-level decision-making.
5. Blueprinting & Business Alignment
Partner with Business Architecture to create Enterprise Blueprints. You will take high-level strategic goals (e.g., "Improve SME Spend") and map them to specific technical capabilities and data flows required to deliver that outcome.
6. Technical Standards & Principles
You will establish and enforce the Secure by Design and Data First architectural principles. You will set the non-negotiable Guardrails (rules) that product teams must follow to ensure technical consistency, interoperability, and security across the organization.
7. Strategic Consultancy & Mentorship
Provide Architecture-as-a-Service to senior stakeholders, moving from "activity-based" updates to "outcome-based" advice. You will mentor a team of 1 – 4 architects, establishing a formal competency framework to elevate the team’s strategic influence.
8.Architectural Steering & High-Level Design (HLD)
Responsible for documenting the Architecture Steer papers that drive cross-functional alignment on multi-million pound investments. While product teams handle standard designs, you will personally author the High-Level Designs (HLDs) for the most complex, business-critical projects to ensure they remain resilient and strategically aligned. You will act as the "bridge" between the executive vision and the engineering squads, translating high-level goals into actionable technical blueprints
Essential Criteria (to be assessed at application stage):
Strategic Governance & Investment - Demonstrate how you manage technical debt, leading architectural road mapping, and achieving buy-in from senior management (e.g., at the Board level).
Leadership - Ability to influence senior stakeholders and managing architectural governance and articulating complex problems to senior staff
Enterprise Architecture & Governance - Knowledge of Architectural Risk Management, Technical Debt Articulation, and the Design of Integration/Data Strategy.
Seeing the Bigger Picture - Ability to translate abstract business or policy strategy into concrete, actionable technical blueprints, and effectively articulate risks to senior stakeholders
Success Profiles (to be assessed at interview):
This vacancy is using Success Profiles and will assess your behaviours and technical skills and experience.
You will be assessed against the following behaviours:
Leadership
Seeing the big picture
Making effective decisions
The assessment will follow a blended interview approach.
This involves a Technical Challenge/Presentation where candidates present a solution to an enterprise architectural problem (such as consolidating the IDAM landscape or defining the AI governance strategy), directly testing their Technical and Experience elements
(A link to the Civil Service Success Profiles Framework is provided below)
What we will offer you, here are some of the benefits you can expect:
Explore fully how we will reward your work.
Want to make a difference? Find out more about the rewarding work that we do in our candidate pack.
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.
We want to make our recruitment process accessible to everyone, so if there is any way that we can support you, please contact recruitment@crowncommercial.gov.uk
Working flexibly, delivering outcomes
CCS 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 CCS 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.
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 for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Selection Process
A 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 recruitment@crowncommercial.gov.uk.
Please 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.
Complaints procedure
Our 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 Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles details of which can be found at http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk
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 recruitment@crowncommercial.gov.uk in the first instance.
If you remain unsatisfied with the response you receive you can then contact the Civil Service Commission at info@csc.gov.uk
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Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
Complaints Procedure
Our 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 at https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/recruitment-principles/
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 recruitment@crowncommercial.gov.uk in the first instance.
If you remain unsatisfied with the response you receive you can then contact the Civil Service Commission at info@csc.gov.uk
Internal candidates should apply using their Workday account. Please use the careers hub for your application.