Senior Technical Architect

DWP Digital; Sheffield; Hybrid; GBP 58,000 - 81,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Time off volunteering

I Can Be Me in DWP

Discounts and savings

Cycle/season ticket loans

Professional development

Job summary

DWP Digital is seeking an experienced Senior Technical Architect to design and govern technology solutions for critical public services. You will lead architectural decisions across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments, ensuring security, resilience and scalability.

You will collaborate with multidisciplinary teams and stakeholders, shape architectural direction, and drive reusable patterns across government initiatives, while supporting a hybrid working model.

Qualifications

• Proven ability to design enterprise-scale architectures across cloud, on-prem and hybrid environments.
• Proven architectural leadership across Agile, Waterfall and hybrid delivery models.
• Translating complex business requirements into robust technical architectures.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical design of systems and services for DWP projects.
• Define technology strategies and governance across architectures.
• Communicate rationale to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Skills

Enterprise architectures

Architectural leadership

Agile/Waterfall hybrid

Requirements translation

Architecture modelling

Integration architectures

Job description

Pay up to £57,946 - £81,267 plus 28.97% employer pension contributions, hybrid working, flexible hours, and great work life balance.

DWP. Digital with Purpose.

This is a great opportunity for experienced Senior Technical Architects to join DWP Digital.

As a Senior Technical Architect, you will play a pivotal role in designing and governing technology solutions that support critical public services.

Working within a complex and evolving digital landscape, you will collaborate with multidisciplinary teams, senior stakeholders and architecture communities to define technology strategies, shape architectural direction and influence key technology decisions.

You will develop and evaluate architectural options, provide expert technical leadership and ensure solutions align with business, security and operational requirements.

Join us and help build the digital services of the future.

What skills, knowledge and experience will you need?

• Proven expertise in designing enterprise-scale architectures across cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments, encompassing networking, security, infrastructure, applications, data and integration services.
• Ability to apply architectural principles, patterns, standards, technology roadmaps and industry best practices to deliver scalable, secure and future-ready solutions.
• Proven experience providing architectural leadership across Agile, Waterfall and hybrid delivery environments, guiding solutions from discovery and design through to deployment and live service.
• Experience of translating complex business requirements into robust technical architectures, ensuring clear traceability, effective stakeholder engagement and informed technology decision‑making.
• Proficient using architecture modelling techniques, frameworks and tools to develop, document and communicate architectural designs and technical solutions.
• Ability to design and govern modern integration architectures, including microservices, APIs and event‑driven solutions, applying best practice to deliver resilient, scalable and maintainable services.

You and your role

Our Senior Technical Architects play a key role in shaping and influencing the design of systems and services across multiple DWP projects and teams.

You’ll work within a uniquely complex digital environment, using broad architectural thinking to solve technical challenges and ensure solutions align with strategic business and technology objectives.

You will lead the technical design of systems and services, making informed architectural decisions and clearly communicating the rationale behind them to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders. Your expertise will help ensure solutions are secure, scalable, resilient and fit for purpose for the millions of people that rely on them.

You will provide assurance for services and systems, ensuring architectural quality and alignment with DWP and cross‑government strategies.

You will also identify opportunities for collaboration, standardisation and reuse, helping to maximise the benefits of cross‑government alignment and shared approaches.

You're a technical expert, a leader and a good communicator. You'll be an important part of our thriving architecture community - you'll have access to the support, learning and networking you need, and you will support the development of others through mentoring and coaching.

Location:

You’ll join us in one of our brilliant digital hubs in Blackpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle or Sheffield whichever is most convenient for you.

Hybrid Working:

We work a hybrid model - you’ll spend some time working at home and some time collaborating face to face in a hub.

Pay:

Up to £81,267. £68,205 salary plus a Government Digital and Data Allowance of up to £23,321, subject to our assessment of capability at interview.

Pension:

You’ll get a brilliant civil service pension with employer contributions worth 28.97%, worth up to £16,786 per year.

We have a broad benefits package built around your work‑life balance which includes:

• Time off volunteering and charitable giving
• Bring your authentic self to work with 'I Can Be Me in DWP'
• Discounts and savings on shopping, fun days out and more
• Interest‑free loans to buy a bike or a season ticket, so it's even easier for you to get to work and start making a difference
• Professional development, coaching, mentoring and career progression opportunities.

And we have an award‑winning environment and culture:

• DWP have been recognised as 2024 Diversity Employer of the Year at the Computing Women in Tech Excellence awards
• Diverse and Inclusive Leadership at Digital Leaders Awards 2024
• Commended as Best Place to Work in Digital category in the Computing Digital Technology Leaders awards 2025
• Recognised as one of the Best Public Sector Employers at 2025 Women In Tech Employer Awards

Process:

We know your time is valuable, so our application and selection process is just 3 stages:

• Interview: A short first stage interview, followed by a longer stage 2 interview for those successful.