Lead Solution Architect

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., The Delivery Architecture team is responsible for leading the delivery of solutions:

• Analysing requirements, assessing options for delivery.
• Imagining, envisioning what is possible. Collaborating with other architecture domains, subject matter experts & suppliers to produce a vision for the solution.
• Assessing delivery options, to identify the ‘right’ components and delivery routes for a solution.
• Defining the proposed solution by producing models, prototypes and documentation.
• Engaging governance organisations/teams.
• Supporting and guiding delivery, using internal/external teams., The Lead Solution Architect will work across multiple projects or teams on problems that require broad architectural thinking to ensure delivery of end to end solution architectures and implemented designs based on requirements, strategic drivers, best practices and guidance. These projects will be high profile and high value, spanning Defra bodies and partner organisations and being highly visible to the public. The Lead Solution Architect will operate within a pan government and industry aware context. Decisions made and guidance given by an architect operating at this level will be financially consequential and guide long term investment decisions in the order millions of pounds.

The Lead Solution Architect plays an active and often practical part in the realisation of the design to deliver the desired business outcomes and will be called upon as an expert to resolve conflicts with inter-dependencies in multiple initiative scenarios often arbitrating between organisations and suppliers. The role often requires oversight and direction of Solution Architects from suppliers, including assurance of their work.

The Lead Solution Architect is expected to cover the end-to-end solution to provide a fully rounded service i.e. the business, information, application and technology aspects of the solution with support from specialists in both business and technical domains. A key part of the role is working with specialist architects and other professions – also getting close to the delivery team and being a trusted advisor and decision maker., * Design logical and physical components of solution architectures that will enable the delivery of the required business outcome and service.

• Assure the work of other colleagues and suppliers, challenging and escalating when necessary. Provide mentoring within teams and provide leadership by exemplifying architectural best practice to other architects.
• Creation of appropriate formal architecture products for (amongst other activities) product selection, options and impact assessment to validate or solution choices, enable traceability and provide corporate knowledge for ongoing support efforts.
• Coordinate the efforts of specialist colleagues (such as security and networks) to contribute to end to end service designs ensuring quality and coherence throughout the solution layers.
• Work with project managers and service owners to provide whole life costing for the components of the architecture in order to select best value approaches and inform the organisation as to the economy of their solutions estate.
• Work with commercial colleagues to provide input to tender materials and conduct supplier and product evaluation.
• Work with service and operations colleagues to define and implement service needs and ensure that sustainable and manageable services are delivered.
• Support technical and architectural requirements capture, design and assurance including injection of architectural stories into backlogs.
• Where appropriate, work as part of agile teams supporting appropriate architectural decision making.
• Identification and management of “technical debt” items including justification and exception seeking for initial adoption and exit plan for future remediation.
• Actively support and contribute to the domain lead aspects of the team function by providing specialist insight and hands-on experience into one or more application technology concerns.
• Gain knowledge of and communicate the needs of a specific business domain within a delivery group, supporting the Principal Architect and deputising for them when required., We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
• Architect for the whole context Level: working
• Architecture communication Level: practitioner
• Commercial perspective Level: working
• Making architectural decisions Level: practitioner
• Problem definition and shaping Level: practitioner
• Strategy design Level: working, Where the location is ‘National’ the successful appointee should discuss and agree an appropriate contractual location in line with both Defra’s location policy and site capacity, prior to proceeding with pre-employment processes.

The agreed amount of time spent at a workplace for this post will reflect the requirement for Civil Servants to spend at least 60% of their working time in an organisation workplace with the option to work the remaining time flexibly from home. Working time spent at a workplace may include time spent at other organisational locations including field-based operational locations, together with supplier, customer or partner locations. This is a non-contractual agreement which is consistent with common Civil Service expectations.

Travel costs to non-contractual workplaces will be subject to departmental travel and subsistence policies. Travel costs to contractual workplaces are the responsibility of the employee.

The successful candidate is required to carry out all their duties from a UK location, and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time., If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes., * UK nationals

• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

• Significant experience of complex IT programme architecture involving dependency management and multi-supplier deliveries in an applications or solutions architecture capacity.
• A practical understanding of architectural models of application and solution delivery and of delivery methodologies and ways of working.
• Strong hands-on experience and knowledge of at least one solutions stack or product ecosystem coupled with a broad understanding of the range of application technologies which may be selected from to deliver required capabilities.
• An understanding of the technical implications of delivering to both on premise infrastructure and cloud (or hybrid) environments and an understanding of the associated economics.
• A desire to prove, pilot and learn new technologies and keep up to date with industry best-practice, external disruptors and adapt accordingly.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify areas where specialist input is required and to coordinate the required resources and consider their advice and input constructively in the broader context of a defined solution.
• Higher education or industry certifications in topics such as Computing, Cloud (AWS/Azure) or other relevant technologies.

Experience and knowledge

• Sift and Experience of working in a multi-supplier environment, both designing aspects of solutions and assuring the work of others to ensure coherent designs supporting an end-to-end service.
• Experience of estimating and contributing to project planning, development of business cases, dependency and risk maps from a technical perspective.
• Demonstrate the ability to arbitrate in difficult situations with senior stakeholders (Directors and Deputy Directors) and make well evidenced decisions that may carry significant delivery and/or financial consequences.
• Experience of working with AI tools from Microsoft or other major suppliers, including delivery of business solution using those technologies., This vacancy is using Success Profiles , and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills., Please take note that Defra does not hold a UK Visa & Immigration (UKVI) Skilled Worker License sponsor and are unable to sponsor any individuals for Skilled Worker Sponsorship., Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

£56,375 - £62,830 Grade 7 National: £56,375 - £62,830, plus industry leading pension and benefits. For details of our pay on appointment policy, please see below under the heading ‘Salary’.

This post offers successful candidates the opportunity to be considered for an additional Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) Skills Supplement. The level of the awarded supplement is determined following a separate skills assessment process, the outcome of which has no impact on the decision to make a job offer. This digital capability supplement ranges from £0 to ££26,608 and you may be awarded a pay supplement within this range based on results of your additional skills assessment. For details of our pay on appointment policy, please see below under the heading ‘Salary’. A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97% GBP, 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 .

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%, New entrants to the Civil Service are expected to start on the minimum of the pay band. 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.

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.