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Lead Technical Architect

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Contract Type: Permanent

Salary: £57,515 – £82,430

Closing date: Apply before 11:55 pm on Sunday 30th August 2026

Number of open roles: 2

Location: Swansea

Grade: G7

Open Session:
Would you like to find out more about the role, the team and what it’s like to work in the Technical Architecture department? If so, DVLA are organising an open session where you can virtually ‘meet the team’ on Monday 17th August at 1.30pm

Sign up here:
https://www.ticketsource.com/dvlaitsrecruitment/g7-lead-technical-architect-applications-familiaris…

Please take note of ‘How to Apply’ section of this advert before submitting an application.

Job summary

Can you demonstrate a strong understanding of, and hands-on experience with, cloud technologies?

Have you worked in a lead or senior technical role within a dynamic and innovative environment?

Can you show the appetite and commitment required to help drive an organisation through a significant transformation?

If so, we’d love to hear from you!

Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:

Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here
25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays a privilege day for the King’s birthday
Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.

Read more in the Benefits section below!

Job description

The DVLA deliver wide reaching digital services to the UK public and industry. We maintain the national record of vehicles and drivers which means we reach over 53 million people a year. If you have applied for a driving licence, changed vehicle, taxed your vehicle, or completed a vehicle enquiry you would have used one of our services.

You’ll get to work alongside our business service designers and agile software development teams and use modern and exciting technologies. Right now, we’re rebuilding our services on a cloud-first platform using Containers and Serverless technologies as well as modern CI/CD tooling, so it’s a great time to join.

Responsibilities

Leading the technical design of systems and services, justifying and communicating design decisions.
Assuring other services and system quality, ensuring the technical work fits into the broader strategy for the agency and wider government.
Exploring the benefits of cross-government alignment.
Providing mentoring within teams.
Providing leadership to other architects.
Communicating the shared vision effectively to stakeholders of a technical and non-technical nature
Getting to understand the code and embrace new techniques such as AI coding assistants and tooling that can be used to further the architecture community at the agency with wider industry best practice

Person specification

You will have an Architectural / Engineering background having worked in an architect or engineering lead role delivering enterprise and cloud-based software systems.
You will also hold the following skills and experience:
Knowledge of designing / building cloud native software on a platform such as AWS.
Experience with data security principles and systems designed to protect sensitive data.
Desire to create and maintain solution designs in an iterative and collaborative manner.
Ability to think strategically about business, product and technical challenges.
Excellent technical skills with the experience to be held accountable for technical aspects of delivering complex solutions, including end-to-end solution design, delivery governance, assurance and support for Engineers and Delivery Managers.
Great interpersonal skills allowing you to work with technical and non-technical stakeholders alike.
You will be able to drive discussions with senior leaders across the agency as well as having the technical background that will enable you to easily interact and give guidance to software developers, testers and engineers.

Benefits
Alongside your salary of £57,515 – £82,430 Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency contributes £16,662 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Passionate, reliable and always willing to push yourself and those around you, you’ll continue to seek improvement in your own role and challenge us too. Because we pride ourselves on how we approach your development. From training courses to specialist skills workshops and opportunities to grow your expertise, we thrive when you thrive. You can find out more about all of the above here alongside a full list of our benefits:

Best in class learning and development tailored to your role 
An environment with flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance 
A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity with a range of staff communities to support all our colleagues 
Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here
Digital communities with clear career frameworks
On-site gym plus personal training available (membership applies)
On-site nursery, restaurant and coffee bar 
25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave).
8 Bank Holidays plus an additional Privilege Day to mark the King’s birthday.
Free parking

Working for the DVLA Digital Team

At DVLA, licensing is just the start. Every project you implement, touch and deliver has a ripple effect that’ll wash across the nation. Here the work you’re doing has the capacity to change the way 50 million people interact with our services. As we aim to keep our roads some of the safest in the world, our innovative, transformative digital-led services help optimise a nation of individuals and business every single day.

To see how our people are transforming our digital services, head over to our DVLA Digital Services Blog and, to understand more about the great opportunities and benefits of working at DVLA read our Inside DVLA blog.

Working hours, office attendance and travel requirements

Full time roles consist of 37 hours per week. Whilst we welcome applications from those looking to work with us on a part time basis, there is a business requirement for the successful candidate to be able to work at least 35 hours per week.

This role is suitable for hybrid working, which is a non-contractual arrangement where a combination of workplace and home-based working can be accommodated subject to business requirements.

The expectation at present is a minimum of 60% of your working time a month will be spent at either your designated workplace (one of the locations cited in the advert) or, when required for business reasons, in another office/work location. There may be occasions where you are required to attend above the minimum expectation.

Security Check

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check. To allow for meaningful checks to be carried out, candidates will be required to have at least 5 years continuous residency in the UK. All applicants for this role must ensure that they meet this minimum residency requirement – if you do not, your application will be withdrawn.

Visa Sponsorship

Please note that we do not hold a UK Visa & Immigration (UKVI) Skilled Worker Licence sponsor and are unable to sponsor any individuals for Skilled Worker Sponsorship. Candidates must ensure they have the appropriate rights to work in the UK before application.

How to apply:

The selection process for this role will be:

Stage 1: Sift of CV

For this role you will need to submit a CV, within your CV please provide detailed evidence of your experience of the following essential criteria:

Experience of creating and maintaining solution designs in an iterative and collaborative manner.
Excellent technical skills, with the ability to demonstrate accountability for end-to-end solution designs and stakeholder management.
Experience with architectural governance processes and practices.

This sift will take place week commencing 31st of August.

Stage 2: Interview & Presentation

At interview stage with DVLA’s panel, you will be assessed against only the following Success Profiles elements:

Experience
Behaviours: Leadership
Technical:
– Technical design throughout the life cycle (expert)
– Architecture communication (expert)
– Making architectural decisions (Practitioner)

The interviews will take place week commencing 14/09/26

Please note that the technical elements of the role will be assessed against Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework (Skills) which you will be able to access here.

This interview will be conducted via Microsoft Teams. Further details will be provided to you should you be selected for interview.

Feedback on your application can only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

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

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 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).

Job Contact:
Zymante Gintalaite:
zymante@inspirepeople.net
02078718550

Click here to view original advert on Civil Service jobs

Attachments

DVLA Digital Job Brochure – V1 2025 Opens in new window(pdf, 2074kB)

ITS-GDD-A-TA-LTA-LTAA-G7-Technical Architect (Applications) – V3.0 Opens in new window(docx, 203kB)

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To apply you must meet the eligibility requirements to work in the UK Civil Service. You can apply if you are a UK, EU, EEA or Swiss national. You may be able to apply if you are a Commonwealth or Turkish national or a family member of an EU, EEA or Swiss national. Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

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Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check. To allow for meaningful checks to be carried out, candidates will be required to have a minimum number of continuous residency years in the UK. All applicants for this role must ensure that they meet this minimum requirement – if you do not, your application will be withdrawn.

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This role requires SC clearance. DVLA’s requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for at least 5 of the last 5 years. Failure to meet this requirement means we are unable to progress further with your application. Thank you for your interest in the DVLA

This role requires you to meet the above nationality requirements to work in the UK Civil Service. Failure to meet this requirement means we are unable to progress further with your application. Thank you for your interest in the DVLA

Disability Confident Scheme (DCS)

You may be eligible to apply via the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) if you have a disability as defined by the Equality Act 2010. This means you must have:

– A physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long term (over 12 months) adverse effect on your ability to carry out normal day to day activities

– A long term health condition; and

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For more information please use this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guaranteed-interview-scheme

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Veteran Interview Scheme (VIS)

You may be eligible to apply as of 1st April 2022 if:

– You are currently serving in the Armed Forces and are within 12 months of your discharge date

– The Armed Forces were your last long term substantive employer and no more than 3 years has elapsed since you left the Armed Forces.

– You meet the minimum qualifying criteria set out in the job advertisement.

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Redeployment Interview Scheme

You may be eligible to apply as of 1st April 2022 if you are an existing Civil Servant and if:

You are at risk of redeployment in your current role
You have already been made redundant and placed on a RRR list
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DVLA know that they deliver better services when their workforce reflects the full range of backgrounds and experiences in the society they serve. To continue to do this Inspire People need your help in filling out a short monitoring form.

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