Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Lead Technical Architect
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Bristol, London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Reading, Warrington, York
Job Summary
Defra is the UK government department responsible for safeguarding our natural environment, supporting our world-leading food and farming industry, and sustaining a thriving rural economy. Our broad remit means we play a major role in people's day-to-day life, from the food we eat, and the air we breathe, to the water we drink.
Digital, Data, Technology and Security (DDTS) is the trusted team for digital across the entire Defra Group.
We have around 1000 colleagues across DDTS and our ambition is to make it easier and faster than ever for people to interact with Defra. If you are ready to drive innovation and push boundaries, we want to hear from you. Join us and together we will create a great place for living, and a green and healthy future for all.
Find Out More About DDTS:
Job Description
You will provide senior technical leadership for DEFRA’s End User Infrastructure estate, covering devices, endpoints, operating systems, application delivery, and modern workplace platforms across a predominantly Microsoft-based environment.
You will lead the architecture for complex and high-risk services and change initiatives, defining domain standards, patterns, and roadmaps aligned to enterprise strategy, security requirements, and cross-government standards. This includes operating across a mixed estate of modern platforms and legacy technologies, ensuring continuity of user services as the organisation transitions away from legacy delivery models.
Working Across Multidisciplinary Teams, You Will:
- Lead and assure technical designs and architectural decision-making, particularly where services operate across device, operating system, and application runtime boundaries
- Guide teams and suppliers to deliver coherent, secure, operable, and value-for-money solutions across both modern and legacy environments
- Identify and manage architectural risks across multiple services, including those arising from legacy platforms, dependencies, and unclear ownership
- Communicate complex technical issues clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, particularly where user experience is impacted by cross-domain dependencies
- Support and develop architectural capability through mentoring and collaboration
This role suits an experienced Technical Architect who can balance strategic thinking with hands-on design leadership in a complex organisational environment, including operating in situations where technology, ownership, and dependencies are not always fully defined.
Person specification
Responsibilities
The post holder will be expected to:
- Define and maintain the domain architecture for End User Infrastructure, including principles, patterns, standards, transition states, and roadmaps for modernisation across device, operating system, and application delivery layers
- Lead the technical design of high-impact and high-complexity EUI services and changes, justifying and communicating design decisions clearly, including decisions required to support legacy application behaviour
- Guide and assure the work of other architects, delivery teams, and suppliers, ensuring designs fit the broader strategy for government and Defra while remaining operable for end users
- Identify and manage architectural risks affecting multiple teams or domains, including risks associated with legacy platforms, cross-domain dependencies, and transitional states
- Provide leadership within the architecture community, including mentoring, coaching, and setting expectations for architectural quality in the EUI domain
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Skills And Experience
- Significant experience of complex IT programme and service architecture in infrastructure and end user domains, including dependency management and multi-supplier delivery in environments where services span devices, operating systems, and application delivery
- Strong hands-on expertise in one or more relevant technology areas, such as endpoint management, end user devices, operating system deployment, enterprise application delivery, digital workplace platforms, or identity-related client technologies, combined with a broad understanding of adjacent infrastructure domains
- Experience working within a predominantly Microsoft-based environment, including Windows operating systems, Microsoft Office estates (including legacy, non-Microsoft 365 versions), and Azure-based workplace platforms
- Experience supporting and designing for legacy application environments, including applications that have been centralised into virtual platforms (e.g. Citrix) due to compatibility or sustainability constraints
- Experience defining and maintaining domain standards, principles, patterns, and roadmaps, including transitional architectures that support migration away from legacy platforms (e.g. Citrix) towards modern alternatives such as Azure Virtual Desktop or other DaaS solutions
- Experience making architectural decisions on application delivery models, including determining whether services are best delivered via local installation (e.g. Company Portal), virtualised environments, or hybrid approaches
- Experience of architectural assurance, supplier challenge, options analysis, and evidence-based decision-making in a complex organisational environment
- Experience of working with security, operational, service, commercial, and delivery stakeholders to shape coherent end-to-end designs
- Strong understanding of secure-by-design approaches, government security expectations, and the operational realities of live service change
- Experience of mentoring, coaching, and leading other architects or technical specialists through influence rather than line management
Behavioural and technical expectations
You will be expected to operate at Grade 7 level, demonstrating:
- Leadership through influence across complex, multi-team environments
- The ability to communicate and influence effectively across technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Strong architectural judgement, particularly where trade-offs are required between modernisation and continuity of existing services
- The ability to design for the whole context, including operating in environments with legacy constraints, incomplete information, and cross-domain dependencies
Key clarification of role context
The Role Operates Within An Environment Where:
- Legacy applications, including those dependent on older Microsoft Office versions or local execution models, remain business-critical
- Many of these applications have previously been moved into virtual platforms (such as Citrix) to maintain operability and now require reassessment and transition
- No single delivery model applies, and decisions must be made at an individual service level based on technical constraints, user needs, and long-term sustainability
- The focus is on ensuring that applications continue to function reliably for users across evolving platforms, rather than assuming that applications can be redesigned or replaced
Selection process
The Civil Service marks each element of the selection process on a merit basis. You can visit the gov.uk website for further information on the Civil Service rating scale.
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
Ensure you have tailored your CV and Personal Statement to the 'skills and experience' section of the job advert by providing examples on how you are suitable for the role using the STAR method.
Please ensure you demonstrate clearly, within your personal statement, how you meet these requirements, as the information you provide will form a key part when the panel is scoring your application.
For further information on STAR, you can check out our Hints and Tips document.
Application process
As Part Of The Application Process, You Will Be Assessed On Your experience. This Will Be Evaluated By Looking At Your CV And Personal Statement, So Please Provide The Following And Ensure Your Experience Is Clearly Demonstrated:
- A CV
- A 750-word Personal Statement: Referring to the 'skills and experience' sections of the job advert, please demonstrate how you are suitable for the role by providing relevant examples.
Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.
Sift
Sift will begin shortly after the advert closes.
Should there be a large number of applications, an initial sift will be conducted using your personal statement. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment or interview.
Interview
If successful at sift, you will be invited to an interview where you will be assessed on the Behaviours and Technical Skills listed below, as well as Experience.
Interview dates are to be confirmed. Please note that these may be subject to change.
Interviews will be held virtually on Microsoft Teams.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Leadership
- Communicating and Influencing
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- DDAT- Architect for the whole context — Practitioner
- Architecture communication — Expert
- Community collaboration — Practitioner
- Making architectural decisions — Practitioner
- Strategy design — Practitioner
- Technical design throughout the lifecycle — Expert
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £56,375, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs contributes £16,331 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
- 25 days leave (rising to 30 days over 5 years) plus bank holidays.
- A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%.
- A day off per year for the King's birthday.
- Access to a range of retail discounts (these include supermarket, tech, gym, holiday, phone and more).
- Flexible working options such as condensed hours, part-time and flexi time.
- 3 paid volunteering days per year.
- Funding for professional membership of a recognised professional body.
- Learning and development tailored to your role and budget for training or qualifications.
- A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
- Cycle to work scheme.
- Health cash plan to help you manage health costs for a reduced monthly fee.
- Access to the Employee Assistance Programme open 24 hours, 7 days a week, that provides support to you during any times of stress or difficulty.
- Free access to Headspace for wellbeing.
- Season ticket loan for public transport.
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
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