12137 - Lead Technical Architect
| Posting date: | 24 November 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £71,381 to £85,257 per year |
| Additional salary information: | The national salary range is £71,381 - £80,419, London salary range is £75,674 - £85,257. Your salary will be dependent on your base location |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 05 December 2025 |
| Location: | UK |
| Remote working: | Hybrid - work remotely up to 3 days per week |
| Company: | Ministry of Justice |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 12137 |
Summary
Lead Technical Architect
Location: National*
Closing Date: 5th December
Interviews: 16th – 17th December
Grade: 6
(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)
Salary: London: £75,674 – £87,875 (allowance of up to £12,201); National: £71,381 – £83,700 (allowance of up to £12,319)
Working pattern: full-time, part-time, flexible working
Contract Type: Permanent
Vacancy number: 12137
*We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your local office. Office locations can be found ON THIS MAP
The Role
We’re recruiting for a Lead Technical Architects here at Justice Digital, to be part of our warm and collaborative HM Prison & Probation Service team.
This role aligns against Lead Technical architect from the Government Digital and Data Framework
Our Lead Technical Architects work with and oversee multiple projects or teams on problems that require broad architectural thinking. They are responsible for defining and championing the strategy, leading the technical design of systems and services and justifying and communicating their design decisions.
They assure other services and system quality, making sure the technical work fits into the broader strategy for their agencies. They provide mentoring within teams and provide peer support to other architects.
They have a good understanding of a broad range of technologies, can switch between different problems and responsibilities and are able to converse easily with and translate between non-technical stakeholders and technical practitioners.
At Justice Digital, you’ll be working on our acclaimed open-source public services, with user needs at the heart of everything we do, helping us to transform government for the future.
We are a flexible organisation and we understand that people can't always work 5 days a week or might have responsibilities that sometimes clash with standard office hours. We work as flexibly as we can, including offering part time hours, so if in doubt please do get in touch. If you're the right candidate we will do our best to work around you.
To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025
Key Responsibilities:
Work with the Principal Technical Architects to define, maintain and own the technical strategy and roadmap for services of various sizes and complexity, defining how they integrate with other services and teams, and how they evolve over time
Collaborate and find agreement with senior stakeholders, providing both technical and non-technical direction and challenge
Mentor, coach, and line manage senior and mid-level technical architects
Guide technical teams, influence technical choices and seek out opportunities for digital transformation
Undertake structured evaluation of technical concepts, translating this into technical designs that describe a solution
Look for opportunities to collaborate and reuse common components, communicating with both technical and non-technical people
Assure other services and system quality, ensuring the technical work fits into the broader strategy for the agency
Align your team's work with departmental and wider government technology strategy
Support hiring, taking part in recruitment for both Technical Architects and other professions such as Software Developers
Our Tech Stack
Programming languages such as TypeScript/Node, Kotlin/Java.
AWS, using infrastructure as code such as Terraform, CloudFormation, or ARM templates
Container orchestration tools such as Kubernetes.
Public GitHub repositories for our work
Modern development practices such as domain-driven design, test-driven development, continuous integration and continuous delivery
Mac laptops
Plus other tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, AppInsights, GitHub Actions, CircleCI, and more
If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!
Benefits
37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours.
A £1k per person learning budget is in place to support all our people, with access to best in class conferences and seminars, accreditation with professional bodies, fully funded vocational programmes and e-learning platforms
Staff have 10% time to dedicate to develop & grow
Generous civil service pension based on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 28.97% from April 1st 2024 (Contribution Rates)
25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and 1 privilege day usually taken around the King’s birthday. 5 additional days of leave once you have reached 5 years of service.
Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!
Wellbeing support including access to the Calm app.
Nurturing professional and interpersonal networks including those for Carers & Childcare, Gender Equality, PROUD and SPIRIT
Bike loans up to £2500 and secure bike parking (subject to availability and location)
Season ticket loans, childcare vouchers and eye-care vouchers.
5 days volunteering paid leave.
Some offices may have a subsidised onsite Gym.
Location: National*
Closing Date: 5th December
Interviews: 16th – 17th December
Grade: 6
(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)
Salary: London: £75,674 – £87,875 (allowance of up to £12,201); National: £71,381 – £83,700 (allowance of up to £12,319)
Working pattern: full-time, part-time, flexible working
Contract Type: Permanent
Vacancy number: 12137
*We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your local office. Office locations can be found ON THIS MAP
The Role
We’re recruiting for a Lead Technical Architects here at Justice Digital, to be part of our warm and collaborative HM Prison & Probation Service team.
This role aligns against Lead Technical architect from the Government Digital and Data Framework
Our Lead Technical Architects work with and oversee multiple projects or teams on problems that require broad architectural thinking. They are responsible for defining and championing the strategy, leading the technical design of systems and services and justifying and communicating their design decisions.
They assure other services and system quality, making sure the technical work fits into the broader strategy for their agencies. They provide mentoring within teams and provide peer support to other architects.
They have a good understanding of a broad range of technologies, can switch between different problems and responsibilities and are able to converse easily with and translate between non-technical stakeholders and technical practitioners.
At Justice Digital, you’ll be working on our acclaimed open-source public services, with user needs at the heart of everything we do, helping us to transform government for the future.
We are a flexible organisation and we understand that people can't always work 5 days a week or might have responsibilities that sometimes clash with standard office hours. We work as flexibly as we can, including offering part time hours, so if in doubt please do get in touch. If you're the right candidate we will do our best to work around you.
To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025
Key Responsibilities:
Work with the Principal Technical Architects to define, maintain and own the technical strategy and roadmap for services of various sizes and complexity, defining how they integrate with other services and teams, and how they evolve over time
Collaborate and find agreement with senior stakeholders, providing both technical and non-technical direction and challenge
Mentor, coach, and line manage senior and mid-level technical architects
Guide technical teams, influence technical choices and seek out opportunities for digital transformation
Undertake structured evaluation of technical concepts, translating this into technical designs that describe a solution
Look for opportunities to collaborate and reuse common components, communicating with both technical and non-technical people
Assure other services and system quality, ensuring the technical work fits into the broader strategy for the agency
Align your team's work with departmental and wider government technology strategy
Support hiring, taking part in recruitment for both Technical Architects and other professions such as Software Developers
Our Tech Stack
Programming languages such as TypeScript/Node, Kotlin/Java.
AWS, using infrastructure as code such as Terraform, CloudFormation, or ARM templates
Container orchestration tools such as Kubernetes.
Public GitHub repositories for our work
Modern development practices such as domain-driven design, test-driven development, continuous integration and continuous delivery
Mac laptops
Plus other tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, AppInsights, GitHub Actions, CircleCI, and more
If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!
Benefits
37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours.
A £1k per person learning budget is in place to support all our people, with access to best in class conferences and seminars, accreditation with professional bodies, fully funded vocational programmes and e-learning platforms
Staff have 10% time to dedicate to develop & grow
Generous civil service pension based on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 28.97% from April 1st 2024 (Contribution Rates)
25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and 1 privilege day usually taken around the King’s birthday. 5 additional days of leave once you have reached 5 years of service.
Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!
Wellbeing support including access to the Calm app.
Nurturing professional and interpersonal networks including those for Carers & Childcare, Gender Equality, PROUD and SPIRIT
Bike loans up to £2500 and secure bike parking (subject to availability and location)
Season ticket loans, childcare vouchers and eye-care vouchers.
5 days volunteering paid leave.
Some offices may have a subsidised onsite Gym.