Principal Technical Architect - Migration & Borders Technology Portfolio (MBTP)

Home Office

Apply before 11:55 pm on Tuesday 13th August 2024

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Details

Reference number

362500

Salary

£69,200 - £80,520

New entrants to the civil service will start their role on the salary band minimum: £69,200 for national roles. £73,200 for London roles. A recruitment retention allowance (RRA) between £5,500 to £13,700 is available for candidates who demonstrate exceptional skills and experience evidenced at interview stage. This allowance is subject to initial review within six months of taking up the post and thereafter an annual review in-line with departmental priorities and could be reduced or withdrawn at any time.

A Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

Job grade

Grade 6

Contract type

Permanent

Business area

HO - Digital Data and Technology

Type of role

Architecture and Data
Digital
Information Technology

Working pattern

Flexible working, Full-time, Part-time, Compressed hours

Number of jobs available

2

Contents

• Location
• About the job
• Benefits
• Things you need to know
• Apply and further information

Location

Croydon, Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow, London Warehouse K

About the job

Job summary

The Home Office leads on the work to keep the country safe and protect the public. We make a vital contribution to HM Government’s plan for a stronger, fairer, outward-looking, and united Britain. This includes immigration, refugee protection, passports, drugs and crime policy, counter-extremism and counter terrorism and works to ensure visible, responsive, and accountable policing in the UK. This makes us one of the most exciting and stimulating government departments to work in. If you work with us, you will be making a real difference.

This role can be based in any of the advertised locations/regions, with occasional travel required. Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. Where this is the case, employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in the office. Applicants can raise any queries to the email address at the bottom of the advert.

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 in the Home Office at this grade level. Appointments will be made on merit based on fair and open competition.

Job description

A Principal Technical Architect leads at the highest level, with a technical understanding of the broadest range of technologies used across the estate, working with the Head of Role to define technical strategy, making sure it is agreed and followed. You will manage diverse teams across multiple locations, finding and using best practice and emerging technologies and inspiring other architects, helping them understand how to deliver the goals of the organisation.

The role requires working closely with our organisation across the Migration and Borders services; understanding the current and future systems managing passports, civil registration, immigration, border security, and controls for people and goods entering the UK. You will be a key part of the design authority for the portfolio, and responsible for representing Migration and Borders interests for the technical governance, problem solving and high-risk issue management of our systems.

Migration and Borders Technology Portfolio (MBTP) is part of the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) Directorate in the Home Office. DDaT enables the Home Office to keep citizens safe and the country secure, as well as at the front line of making the Home Office a modern and capable department at a time of unprecedented global change. MBTP is a portfolio of around 3,500 dedicated professionals made up of civil servants and suppliers working together to develop some of the most challenging and transformative technology products, supporting critical programmes within the migration and borders system.

We design services, build, run and sustain them to enable some of the government’s most important strategic outcomes, notably the legitimate movement of people and goods to support economic prosperity.  Our environment is fast-paced and often complex, and leadership roles combine intellectual challenge with an opportunity to work with highly innovative teams across the department, wider government, and industry. In supporting a great breadth of services, a diverse range of stakeholders, cutting edge solutions and an exciting future agenda that directly affect millions of people’s lives.

Our work is guided by these fundamental principles:
• Put user needs first.
• Delivery and outcomes over process.
• Make the most of openness; open standards, open source, open data and open markets.

Person specification

Your main day to day responsibilities will be

• Owning the creation and delivery of the technical strategy for your area of work, include brokering decisions and bridging technical and business disputes by weighing up risk, complexity impact and deliverability.
• Presenting recommendations for technologies or improvements to enhance systems to support project goals clearly to senior management, based on knowledge of IT and analysis of systems’ needs.
• Leading the design and review processes for new solution and services, translating technical concepts between systems engineering, delivery management and service management.
• Developing and documenting the proposed technical design for the integration and implementation of any solution, working with and across other areas of DDaT and the business.
• 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, ensuring a coherent and consistent strategy across cyber, cloud, data centre, storage, network, mobile and the user experience of infrastructure.

To meet the National Security Vetting requirements for this role you will need to have resided in the UK for a minimum of 5 years.

Essential skills

We’re looking for an experienced Technical Architect looking for a new and interesting challenge with 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 program.
• 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.

SFIA capability framework

Skills for the information age (SFIA) is the technical framework that sets the standard capability and development of all DDaT skills in the Home Office. This is a link to the capability framework:  All skills A–Z — English (sfia-online.org). We use set SFIA technical skills to form our interview questions and we will assess you against these technical skills during the selection process.

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Strategic Planning (ITSP) – Level 4
• Innovation (INOV) – Level 4
• Enterprise and Business Architecture (STPL) – Level 4
• Solution Architecture (ARCH) – Level 5
• Consultancy (CNSL) – Level 5
• Specialist Advice (TECH) – Level 4

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £69,200, Home Office contributes £18,684 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

You’ll also have access to the same benefits available to all civil servants in the Home Office: 

• An in-year performance bonus scheme.
• A Civil Service pension with employer contribution rates of between 26.6% and 30.3%, depending upon salary.
• 25 days annual leave on appointment, plus 8 days public holidays and 1 day for the King’s Birthday, rising further with service.
• Flexible working options to enable you to achieve the work life balance that right for you including part-time, flexi time and job sharing.
• Training and development opportunities tailored to your role.
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
• Season ticket loans and rental deposit loans.
• Cycle to work and payroll giving.
• Employee discounts - including a huge number of retailers, Microsoft Home Use programme and gym membership.
• A variety of staff recognition schemes including thank you vouchers.
• Health and wellbeing initiatives including monthly mindfulness sessions.
• Staff support networks.
• Maternity, adoption or shared parental leave of up to 26 weeks full pay followed by 13 weeks of statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid.
• Maternity and adoption support leave (paternity leave) of 2 weeks full pay.
• Up to five days paid leave for volunteering.
• Study leave and support for studying for a qualification or other accredited development relevant to your role.

You can find more information at Benefits - Home Office Careers

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.

As part of the application process you will be asked to complete

• A CV.
• A Statement of Suitability (Max Word Limit:1000 words)

Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

Please note your CV and statement of suitability should include all relevant experience that relates to our essential skills criteria listed in the job advert.

The statement of suitability and the CV will both be scored separately.

Please use STAR format in your examples – use this link The STAR method , National Careers Service / A brief guide to competencies - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Please remove information that identifies you (for example your name, age, or place of education) so that you will be judged on merit alone and not your personal background, circumstances, race, or gender. Do NOT include e-mail addresses or links to online profiles, resumés, or prior work, either personal or business. Active links or e-mail addresses will result in your application being rejected.

Interview stage

Candidates reaching the required standard will then be invited to attend a final interview. The interview will assess the technical skills (SFIA skills) outlined above and your experience.

Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. All applications are screened for plagiarism, copying, and generating of examples/answers from internet sources including Artificial intelligence. If detected, the application may be withdrawn from the process.

Further action, including disciplinary action, may be considered in such cases involving civil servants. Providing false or misleading information would be contrary to the core values of honesty and integrity expected of all civil servants.

Sift and interview dates

The sift is expected to take place from week commencing the 14th of August 2024.

Interviews will take place from week commencing the 5th of September 2024.

Please note interview will be carried out virtually using Microsoft Teams.

We will try to meet the dates set out in the advertisement. There may be occasions when these dates will change. You will be provided with sufficient notice of the confirmed dates.

Interviews will take place remotely via video (Microsoft Teams).

Candidates will be required to have access to:

• A laptop (personal or work) with a working webcam
• Good internet connection
• Microsoft Teams

PLEASE NOTE: Due to time constraints we may not be able to offer alternative interview date(s). It is therefore expected that candidates who are successful at sift stage will make themselves available during the above time frame given.

Further details and instructions will be provided closer to the scheduled interview.

Further information

Please read the essential skills for this position carefully. We will only consider those who meet the listed requirement.

If you have previously made an unsuccessful application for a role with the same essential skills and are not able to demonstrate how you have developed these skills since your last application please reconsider applying as your application is unlikely to be successful.

For meaningful checks to be carried out, individuals need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. You should normally have been resident in the United Kingdom for the last 3 years if the role requires CTC clearance, 5 years for SC clearance and 10 years for DV.  A lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance and applicants should contact the Vacancy Holder/Recruiting Manager listed in the advert for further advice.

For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the following page https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/demystifying-vetting

Job offers to this post are made based on merit order. We often have similar roles available at different grades. If a candidate is suitable for a similar role or a lower grade than they have applied for, we may offer the candidate that role without the need to go through a further selection process providing the role has the same competencies and essential skills.

Reserve list      

A reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for 12 months. Should another role become available within that period you may be offered this position. 

Visa sponsorship     

We are unable to sponsor any individuals via Skilled Worker Sponsorship / Tier 2 (General) work visas as we do not hold a UK Visa & Immigration (UKVI) Skilled Worker License.   

Working at the Home Office

If you are successful in this position and choose to accept the provisional offer for this role, you will be removed from all other Home Office reserve lists at the same grade.

Every day, Home Office civil servants do brilliant work to develop and deliver policies and services that affect the lives of people across the country and beyond. To do this effectively and fairly, the Home Office is committed to representing modern Britain in all its diversity, and creating a welcoming, inclusive workplace where all our people are able to bring their whole selves to work and perform at their best.

We are flexible, skilled, professional and diverse. We work to recruit and retain disabled staff and area Disability Confident Leader. We are proud to be one of the most ethnically diverse departments in the civil service. We are a Social Mobility Foundation top 75 employer.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant's details held on the IFD will be refused employment.

For further information please see the attached notes for candidates which must be read before making an application.

Existing Civil Servants should note that some of the Home Office terms and conditions of employment have changed. It is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure they are aware of the Terms and Conditions they will adopt should they be successful in application and should refer to the notes for candidates for further details.

Transfer Terms: Voluntary.

If you are invited to an interview you will be required to  bring a range of documentation for the purposes of establishing identity and to aid any pre-employment checks.

Please see the attached list of Home Office acceptable ID documents.

Any move to the Home Office from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Reasonable Adjustments

If a person with disabilities is at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes. 

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:

• Contact Government Recruitment Service via HOrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs
• Complete the “Assistance Required” section in the “Additional Requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you're deaf, a language service professional

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the ‘Contact point for applicants’ section.

Feedback

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• 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) (opens in a new window)
• 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

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)