Architecture Lead, SEO, Perm, Liverpool/Newport
Description
- Job grade: Senior Executive Officer
- Contract type: Permanent
- Business area: CC - Digital, Data and Technology
- Type of role: Digital, Information Technology
- Working pattern: Flexible working, Full-time, Part-time, Compressed hours
- Number of jobs available: 1
Location
About the job
Job summary
As Architecture Lead within the Data and Architecture team, you will lead and manage the Commission’s architecture practice, reporting to the Head of Data and Architecture.
You will be responsible for developing, maintaining and continuously improving the Commission’s architecture standards, guidance and ways of working, ensuring they are clear, practical and proportionate. You will oversee how architecture is applied across BAU change, projects and programmes, providing guidance, assurance and constructive challenge at the points where significant decisions are being made.
You will help ensure proposed changes are considered in the context of the wider digital, data and technology estate. This includes making sure that decisions about systems, data, integrations, dependencies and risk are well understood, clearly recorded and aligned with the Commission’s agreed architecture direction.
You will work with delivery teams and decision-makers without routinely becoming embedded in day-to-day delivery with focus on architecture input where it adds most value, helping teams make informed decisions and identifying where wider review, specialist input or escalation is needed.
You will manage and develop the Commission’s architecture practice and solution architecture capability, including the Solution Architecture function and Architecture Practice Associate role, setting clear expectations, supporting consistent ways of working and building confidence in applying architecture standards and judgement.
Through this role, you will help the Commission make better technology decisions, reduce unnecessary complexity and maintain a digital estate that is coherent, secure, sustainable and easier to support over time.
Job description
Key Responsibilities
- Lead Architecture Standards
- Maintain and improve architecture standards, principles, templates and ways of working, keeping them clear, practical and proportionate.
- Define what architecture input, evidence and decision records are expected for different types of change.
- Define the architecture artefacts that must be created and kept current (such as system views, decision records, principles and reusable patterns) and oversee their quality.
- Assure Architecture Decisions
- Review significant architecture decisions to check that options, risks, dependencies and trade-offs have been properly considered, providing proportionate challenge and clear recommendations where needed.
- Flag when a decision needs wider review, specialist input or escalation, and make sure decisions are recorded clearly for the teams affected.
- Maintain Architecture Coherence
- Make sure individual changes align with the agreed architecture direction, standards and patterns, and coordinate input where decisions or dependencies span more than one service.
- Spot where separate pieces of work overlap, conflict or have wider impact across the estate, and coordinate a response.
- Oversee Architecture Disciplines
- Lead the Solution Architecture function so its analysis, views, recommendations and decision records are consistent and aligned with the wider architecture practice.
- Maintain an overarching view across the architecture disciplines in use - solution, data, technical, network and security - and assure work done by others against the Commission's standards.
- Support the Architecture Associate in maintaining architecture artefacts, repository content and practice material.
- Manage and Develop Architecture Capability
- Line-manage and develop the roles in the practice, including through the move to the new operating model.
- Hold clear boundaries between architecture, delivery and business analysis.
- Work with the Head of Data and Architecture and delivery leads to prioritise architecture support across projects and programmes, and to manage and escalate architecture risks, including capacity.
Person specification
Essential criteria
Ability:
- Architecture Judgement Able to assess proposed changes in context, identify architectural risks, dependencies and wider impacts, and give proportionate challenge, recognising when a decision needs wider review or escalation.
- Team Leadership Able to lead and develop a small team and keep it focused where architecture adds most value, including through change.
- Applying Architecture Standards Able to help others apply architecture standards and ways of working consistently, and to maintain clear role boundaries so the team's effort stays where it adds most value.
- Communication and Influence Able to explain architecture issues and decisions clearly to technical and non-technical audiences, and to influence through practical, evidence-based advice.
Experience:
- Applying Architecture Standards Experience of applying architecture standards, principles, governance or assurance to digital, data or technology changes.
- Working Across Change Experience of working across multiple projects, services or disciplines, identifying dependencies, overlaps and risks, and helping teams weigh options and trade-offs.
- Leading Others Experience of line-managing or leading a team, including setting objectives, developing people, managing performance, and prioritising limited capacity across competing demands.
Technical:
- Systems, Data and Integration Awareness Working understanding of how digital systems, data flows, integrations and platforms fit together, and how a change in one area can affect others.
- Architecture Standards and Direction Understanding of how architecture standards, patterns and reusable approaches support consistent and sustainable change, and how an agreed architecture direction guides individual decisions.
- Architecture Governance and Decision-Making Understanding of how architecture decisions are reviewed, recorded and escalated proportionately.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Making Effective Decisions
- Communicating and Influencing
Benefits
This is your chance to make a contribution that really matters and to make an impact in an organisation where your voice will be heard and your hard work noticed.
Watch this short video to find out more about us.
We operate a flexible hybrid working policy where office attendance is combined with at least 3 days homeworking per week dependent on role requirements.
We recognise everyone as an individual, accepting people for who they are and treating everyone fairly. We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring from all backgrounds and we aim to have a workforce that represents the wider society that we serve. We champion inclusion and wellbeing, aiming to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and has a sense of belonging.
We do not discriminate on the basis of culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor.
We offer access to the highly competitive Civil Service Pension Scheme (employer contributions of 28.97%), far more than in the private sector, and a flexible, family-friendly environment. Additionally, you can look forward to other great benefits via our ‘Perkbox’ and ‘Edenred’ schemes. These include everything from an interest-free season ticket loan and bicycle loan (after two months) to discounts on gym membership, cinema tickets and restaurants. Please see the attached Charity Commission benefits document.
A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by one day per year up to a maximum of 30 days per year.
The Charity Commission’s operational ambition is to realise the Commission’s values of being an expert regulator that is fair, balanced, and independent, which works in a way that is supportive, collaborative, and innovative to achieve our ambitions. We want to develop our capability to regulate charities to realise this goal and meet our statutory and public duties to ensure that charity in England and Wales can deliver maximum benefit to society in a way that upholds its reputation in the eyes of the public.
Work at the Charity Commission and you’ll make a difference every day to:
- The 170,000 charities of all shapes and sizes that we regulate across England and Wales.
- The trustees we partner with and advise.
- The people and causes that benefit from the £10bn generously donated each year by the public.
Find out more about working for us here.
To note: Any move across the Civil Service on or after 4 October 2018 may have implications on an employee’s ability to carry on claiming childcare vouchers.
Visa Sponsorship
Please note that we are currently unable to offer Skilled Worker Sponsorship. Candidates must ensure they have the appropriate right to work in the UK before applying.
Things you need to know
Artificial intelligence
Selection process details
To apply for this post, you must complete an online application with the following:
- A blind CV setting out your Job History/Full Qualifications/Previous skill and experiences.
- A Personal Statement (maximum 750 words) demonstrating how you meet the essential criteria for the role outlined on the Job Description.
We will assess your CV and Personal Statement against the Essential criteria for the role.
We will ask you to carry out a Presentation at interview and we will assess you against the following Behaviours at interview:
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Making Effective Decisions
- Communicating and Influencing
Interview Arrangements
Interviews will be taking place face to face.
The sift is due to take place on the 20/11/2026
Interviews will be taking place in Newport on 03/12/2026 and in Liverpool on 04/12/2026
We will try to meet the dates set out in the advert. There may be occasions when these dates change. You will be provided with sufficient notice of the confirmed dates.
At the interview, the panel can then probe further and ask applicants to provide further specific examples that show how they best demonstrate their skills.
We reserve the right to raise the score required at any stage of the process to manage numbers.
Behaviours:
The distinguishing Behaviours (the required skills, knowledge, and behaviours) for this role are set out in the Civil Service Behaviours Framework 2018 (Success Profiles - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)) and should be referred to when making this application.
You are required, under the Behaviours approach, to describe how you have dealt with a specific situation.
You must give evidence of your knowledge, skills, and behaviours and how you have applied this, such as what you did or said and how you interacted with other people.
When you are giving your examples, do not spend too many words on description and background information. Avoid using general or unspecific statements. Instead say what the situation was, what you did, what your thought process was and what was the result.
This post is full time however those applicants who do or wish to work an alternative working pattern are welcome to apply. The preferred working pattern may or may not be available. You should discuss this with the vacancy holder.
Reasonable Adjustment:
If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled persons, 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 Charitycommissionrecruitment.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 an interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.
Reserve Lists:
If we have more successful candidates than available vacancies, we will hold a 12-month reserve list as standard.
During that time, we may use the list to fill the same, or similar roles with closely matching essential criteria, without further testing of merit. Any appointments from the Reserve list will be made in strict merit order.
Applying:
We recognise everyone as an individual, accepting people for who they are and treating everyone fairly.
All applications for these vacancies must be made online. There are limited exceptions to this. Paper applications will only be considered if you have a disability that will prevent you from applying online. If this is the case, please email Charitycommissionrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Once you have submitted your application it cannot be amended; only submit your application when you have completely finished and answered all the relevant questions.
Please note that late applications will not be accepted.
If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.
New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.
Vetting
For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website.
Feedback
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
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
Working for the Civil Service
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).
Diversity and Inclusion
Apply and further information
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : Alex Broad
- Email : Recruitment@charitycommission.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : charitycommissionrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Further information
If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the values in the Civil Service Code and/or if you feel the recruitment has been conducted in such a way that conflicts with the Civil Service Commissioner’s Recruitment Principles, and wish to make a complaint, then you should contact in the first instance hrselfservice@charitycommission.gov.uk.
If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web page here.
Attachments
| Architecture Lead Opens in new window (pdf, 222kB) |
| SEO Architecture Lead - Welsh Opens in new window (pdf, 310kB) |
| Benefits Opens in new window (pdf, 169kB) |
| 02. Advert - Benefits - Welsh Opens in new window (pdf, 170kB) |
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