Job summary
Are you a dedicated person who is passionate about making a difference?
Would you like to work for the Ministry of Defence?
Defence Business Services (DBS) is one of the largest shared service organisations in Europe that provides a wide range of corporate services, to over 1.2 million end users, including serving and past military and families, as well as MoD civil servants and industry. DBS delivers large scale administration and smaller specialist services to enable the wider MOD to focus on its core aims, maintaining the UK’s Defence and Security. Services include Human Resources, Pay, Veterans, Finance and Procurement.
- Our Vision - To support UK defence customers with outstanding service every time.
- Our Mission – Together we will proudly support Defence, continuously improving and delivering flexible, timely, sustainable and value for money services that underpin the whole force and enhance operational capability.
DBS is committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues. We are building an inclusive culture and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society.
We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us through opportunities to develop your skills and experience. We also offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make a fulfilling career accessible to you and offer a Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%. Where your role permits, we support a blended working approach alternatively known as hybrid working.
Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. This is a non-contractual arrangement where all office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to capacity and any required workplace adjustments. Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD office, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements.
Come and join the DBS community today!
Job description
DBS Technical Architects support DBS with the design and transition of shared service capabilities to meet the needs of UK Defence and its stakeholders.
DBS Techncial Architects ensure that Defence procurement, financial and human resource capabilities are designed and delivered in line with effective standards and strategies to meet Defence shared service capability and technology modernisation goals.
The roles work as an integral part of the DBS Architecture Profession to ensure all delivered services integrate cleanly into DBS business, technology, application, and data architecture layers.
As Senior Lead Technical Architect you will lead the Finance and Commercial Architecture team supporting the implementation of the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) strategy for DBS and the vision set by the Chief Technology Officer. It wil also include leading on architecture activities for our On Premis Infrastrucutre, supporting the Finance and Commercial move to a cloud service.
The post holder will:
- Collaborate with architects across the enterprise to assess change impacts and ensure a coherent delivery approach. Providing support and advice to other architects who are undertaking the design of new business solutions
- Design solutions in line with MoD design and security policy and gain approvals through the DBS Technical Design Authority governance forum.
- Design models and reference artifacts enabling re-use of solution components supporting other architects to conform to required processes and standards.
- Ensure that new business capabilities are designed for clean integration with existing services. Considering service, applications, data and technology architectural layers and including through life compliance with business and technology policy and strategy
- Design and support development of governance, processes, and tooling to monitor and manage new business design, delivery and usage across the DBS enterprise
- Engage with MOD, industry, and government wide leaders and technical / service experts to identify and implement best architecture practice solutions to meet business needs.
- Support proofs of concept for technologies and services new to DBS.
- Support, coach and mentor colleagues in adapting to new delivery approaches as a result of architectural design changes.
- Ensure architectures are compliant with DBS technical principles and contribute to achievement of the DBS Digital, Data and Technology Strategy aims
You will need the following skills for this role. Further information on DDaT capability framework and expectations at each level can be found on the government web site.
Architect for the whole context : Practitioner - You can identify and assess relevant strategic information and trends that may impact your work and use it to inform your actions. You can understand how your work impacts others and collaborate with them.
Architecture communication : Practitioner - use architecture representations to communicate with stakeholders at all technical knowledge and seniority levels to gain stakeholder support. You can mediate architectural discussions.
Commercial Perspective : Working - Commercial management involves exploring commercial opportunities whilst complying with the regulations on how we conduct and manage both internal and third-party relationships.
Governance and Assurance: Working - Governance and assurance involves defining and ensuring adherence to an organisation's quality control and compliance processes.
Life cycle perspective : Practitioner -You can identify which tools and techniques should be used at each stage of the product lifecycle understanding the team and product needs. You can deal with risks between all stages and support stakeholders move through the product lifecycle.
Making and guiding decisions : Pratitioner - You can recommend / make and justify decisions characterised at varying risk levels. You can build consensus of opinion between stakeholders.
Problem definition and shaping: Working - You can look beyond the immediate problem and identify the wider implications across the whole enterprise. You can understand relevant historical context and future impact, and how current work fits in broader contexts and strategies. You can identify underlying problems and opportunities, and carry out horizon scanning to identify future threats or opportunities
Requirements definition and management : Working - Requirements definition and management involves identifying and validating user or business requirements for a product or service
Strategy: Practitioner - You can produce a strategy for technology that meets business needs. You can create, refine and challenge patterns, standards, policies, roadmaps and vision statements. For this skill, senior roles tend to be more proactive as they set the strategy, whereas junior roles tend to be more reactive, responding to the strategy.
Systems Design : Practitioner - Systems design involves creating the specification and design of systems to meet defined business needs.
Technical Breadth : Expert - Involves having strategic understanding of IT trends and technologies, developing frameworks based on the needs of the team and being able to work across different tools and software languages.
Person specification
In addition to essential DDaT skills, all DBS architects will be expected to have or develop the following core technical skills for the effective delivery of DBS business.
Communication skills. To listen to the needs of technical and business stakeholders and interpret them. Manage stakeholder expectations and be flexible. Manage proactive and reactive communication. Facilitate difficult discussions within the team or with diverse senior stakeholders. Understand the appropriate mediums to communicate findings. Shape communications for the audience.
Architectural governance. To support the evolution of architecture governance, and take responsibility for collaborating and supporting in wider CSM governance. Assure and integrate capabilities to meet the needs of multiple business services. Working proactively to ensure the organisation designs coherent infrastructure architecture.
Technical innovation. To understand the impact of emerging technology trends on the organisation and adopt as appropriate.
Architecture modelling. To understand the concepts and principles of architecture modelling and can produce relevant models to describe capability interrelationships. Know how to reverse-engineer models from a live system. Understand industry recognised modelling patterns and standards and know when to apply them. You can compare and align different architecture models.
Architectural standards. To develop and set standards for new business implementation across DBS. Act as the escalation point for non-compliance with standards providing advice and guidance on roadmaps to resolution.
Problem resolution. To ensure that the most appropriate actions are taken to resolve productivity problems as they occur. You coordinate teams to resolve problems and implement solutions and preventative measures.
Strategic thinking. To work within a strategic context and communicate how activities meet strategic goals.
You will hold a recognized technical certification appropriate to the role or be prepared to obtain this while in post.
Desirable Experience / Knowledge
- Principles and practices of good system design.
- Use of BizzDesign tool
Desirable qualifications
- The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) Certification
- Archimate modelling language certification
- Formal qualifications in
- Computer science/computer engineering/information technology
- Enterprise architecture management
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Leadership
- Communicating and Influencing
- Delivering at Pace
- Making Effective Decisions
We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Communicating between the technical and non-technical (technical architect)
- Making and guiding decisions
- Turning business problems into technical design
- Understanding the whole context
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £59,690, Ministry of Defence contributes £17,292 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
- An environment with flexible working options Monday-Friday
- 25 days paid annual leave rising (1 day per year) to 30 days upon completion of 5 years’ service (pro rata). In addition to 8 public holidays per year, you will also receive leave for His Majesty The King’s birthday
- Hybrid working where role permits
- An opportunity to be considered for Reward and Recognition
- Family-friendly policies including - parental leave and adoption leave
- Learning and development tailored to your role
- Professional and personal development of skills
- A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
- Minimum of 15 days special leave in a rolling 12 month period for volunteer reserve commitments
- Special paid leave to volunteer up to 6 days per year
- A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%
Allowances
The post does not offer relocation expenses.
Please be advised that the Department is conducting a review of all pay related allowances which could impact on those allowances that the post currently being advertised attracts.
External recruits who join the MOD who are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a six-month probation period.
DBS has recently undertaken a review of its operational locations in the North West, and have consolidated all activities in Norcross, Blackpool. A further move, to the new Government Hub at Talbot Gateway in Blackpool, is scheduled to take place in 2026.
This post is eligible for a Digital Skills Allowance of up to [£15,300] per annum. Eligibility for this allowance will be assessed at interview against the 4 core technical skills only and reviewed annually in line with departmental policy.
Employment Hours
This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.
Things you need to know
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.
When choosing your Behaviour examples, please make sure you use real life scenarios that relate to your own experiences. Whilst technology may help to enhance your written submission, presenting the ideas of others or those generated by technology, could result in your application being rejected.
Please ensure that at the application and interview stages of the campaign you review the Success Profiles Framework to assist you in the demonstration of your skills and experience.
Your suitability for the role will be assessed using the Success Profile elements that have been chosen for this campaign. Each element will be scored accordingly, and the successful candidate will be appointed on merit.
Applications will be sifted on all Success Profile elements, but in the event of a high number of applications, an initial sift will be conducted on your Primary: Career - Personal Statement, Secondary: Behaviour - Leadership. In this instance the remaining elements will be tested at interview.
At application stage you will be assessed against the following:
Behaviours:
Experience:
- CV
- Personal Statement Please provide information of how you meet the criteria set out in the job description. You may wish to further include examples of how you have tackled similar tasks or demonstrated the skills outlines in the job advert.
At interview you will be assessed against the following:
Behaviours:
- Leadership
- Communicating and Influencing
- Delivering at Pace
- Making Effective Decisions
Technical Skills:
- Communicating between the technical and non-technical (technical architect)
- Making and guiding decisions
- Turning business problems into technical design
- Understanding the whole context
In the rare case where individuals have exact matching scores, the order of merit will be determined based on the behaviour scores at interview in the following order:
- Behaviour - Leadership
- Behaviour - Communicating and Influencing
- Behaviour - Delivering at Pace
- Behaviour - Making Effective Decisions
- Technical - Communicating between the technical and non-technical (technical architect)
- Technical - Making and guiding decisions
- Technical - Turning business problems into technical design
- Technical - Understanding the whole context
If candidate scores are still exact, the merit order will then be determined on the sift score in the below order or priority:
- Career - Job History
- Career - Qualification Details
- Career - Previous Skills
- Career - Personal Statement
- Behaviour - Leadership
We want to offer opportunities to all who are successful at interview for our roles, but this isn’t always possible, so we do hold candidates on an active reserve list for 12 months.
Application sifting to take place week commencing: Late July 2025
Interviews are currently taking place via Ms Teams and will be conducted week commencing: Late July 2025
A minimum of 2 full working days’ notice will be provided for interviews. We endeavour to stick to these dates, but these are subject to change around business needs.
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBS-EnhancedRecruitmentTeam@mod.gov.uk
MOD Recruitment Satisfaction Survey – we may contact you regarding your experience to help us improve our customer satisfaction. The survey is voluntary and anonymous. You may however be given the opportunity to provide additional information to help us improve our service which includes the collection of some personal data as defined by the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). The MOD Privacy Notice sets out how we will use your personal data and your rights.
As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points-based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical.
The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points-based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected, and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.
The Ministry of Defence requires all candidates who are successful at interview to declare any outside interests. These declarations will be discussed with successful candidates following the interview process and before a formal offer of employment is made, as some outside interests may not be compatible with MOD civilian roles. This will not, in the majority of cases, prevent employment in MOD, but it is a measure that must be taken to ensure that appropriate mitigations can be put in place to manage any potential, perceived or actual conflicts of interest from the first day of employment.
The Ministry of Defence adopts a zero-tolerance approach to unacceptable behaviours, which includes bullying, harassment, sexual harassment, discrimination, and victimisation. You will not be eligible and will not be considered for this post if you have been dismissed from a role for such unacceptable behaviours within the last five years. This will also apply if you resign or otherwise leave a role but, because of an adverse decision, would have been dismissed for gross misconduct had you continued in that employment. Pre-employment checks will be carried out.
To assist with your application please find attached -
DBS Candidate Information Guide - Working for Defence Business Services - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
(26) UK Ministry of Defence: Life , LinkedIn
Technical skills Framework guide - https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/role/technical-architect
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
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)
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.
Diversity and Inclusion
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 (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
Apply and further information
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name :
- Amanda Martinez
- Email :
- amanda.martinez630@mod.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email :
- DBS-EnhancedRecruitmentTeam@mod.gov.uk
Further information
Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel a department has breached the requirement of the Recruitment Principles and would like to raise this, please contact DBS-EnhancedRecruitmentTeam@MOD.gov.uk in the first instance. If the role has been advertised externally (outside of the Civil Service) and you are not satisfied with the response, you may bring your complaint to the Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitment/complaints/
Attachments
Defence Civil Servant Offer 2024
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(pdf, 1562kB)
