Senior Enterprise Architect

Job description

Job Title:

Senior Enterprise Architect Band:
Band 5 Salary: £59,877 - £69,457 (plus allowance up to £9,000 per annum depending on technical assessment) Available Locations:
Liverpool, Newport, Norwich, Glasgow or Birmingham. The following locations listed below are restricted to contracted GCA staff already based in one of these offices:
London, Bristol, Manchester or York. External applicants are not eligible for these sites. If you select one of these locations as an external applicant your application will unfortunately be withdrawn. Contract Type:
Permanent

Hours:

Full Time Closing Date: 02/11/26 Interview Date(s): 24th-27th Nov (subject to change)

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Ready to move beyond system design and drive a strategic roadmap that delivers true value for the nation? We are seeking a Senior Enterprise Architect to translate high-level strategy into a resilient, scalable digital estate for the public good. If you’re prepared to own the architectural governance for products impacting millions of citizens, we want to hear from you. In this role, you will navigate the critical trade-offs between speed, cost, and quality—ensuring that every technical decision maximises efficiency and delivers public value across the organisation.

We are seeking a visionary Senior Enterprise Architect to act as the defining authority for our enterprise-wide DDaT strategy and architecture. In this high-impact role, you will perform as a versatile Enterprise Architect while bringing deep specialisation in data and integration—translating high-level strategic goals into coherent, resilient technical roadmaps and leading critical governance on investments and technical debt to ensure secure, scalable public service delivery.

You will lead, mentor, and grow a unified team of Enterprise and Technical Architects, establishing the technical guardrails and maintaining strategic control while steering our complex digital transformation journey and managing preferred delivery partners.

• Strategic Vision & Roadmap Delivery:
  Convert the annual business plan into a clear, step-by-step blueprint for the future technology environment (Target State Architecture or TSA). You will manage the plans for moving from the current system to the future one, specifically for major initiatives, to make sure all projects are connected and support the overall business strategy.
• Governance & Assurance Leadership:
  You will be the technical voice on the Architecture Review Board (ARB). Your role is to manage the 'Front Door' review process, making sure new projects are checked for architectural soundness and fit before budget approval.
• Investment & Technical Debt Management:
  Ensure strategic bids allocate a dedicated remediation budget (15–20%) to mitigate technical debt.
• Senior Leadership Communication:
  Maintain the "Level Zero" Architecture Map as a streamlined executive view of the GCA technology estate for Board and ExCo decision‑making.
• Blueprinting & Business Alignment:
  Partner with Business Architecture to create Enterprise Blueprints. You will take high-level strategic goals (e.g. "Improve SME Spend") and map them to specific technical capabilities and data flows required to deliver that outcome.
• Technical Standards & Principles:
  You will establish and enforce the Secure by Design and Data First architectural principles. You will set the non‑negotiable rules that product teams must follow to ensure technical consistency, interoperability, and security across the organisation.
• Strategic Consultancy & Mentorship:
  Provide Architecture‑as‑a‑Service to senior stakeholders, moving from…