Deputy Director of Digital Architecture and Design
Crown Commercial Service
About the job
Job summary
The role
The Deputy Director of Digital Architecture and Design is a pivotal member of the Digital and Data Services (DDS) leadership team. It will be a demanding appointment that requires the application of deep experience gained from designing and delivering complex digital platforms. This is much more than a ‘steady state’ design role as the appointee will be instrumental in optimising the setup of the function and its running. Transformational leadership and energy is essential to achieve the step-change in capability required to meet objectives. In return, the incumbent will gain experience of developing and delivering a fullspectrum digital roadmap, unparalleled in complexity and criticality and be part of a winning team that will achieve a world-class change in the delivery of public procurement. They will have direct responsibility for our enterprise and solutions architecture, product management, user research, service design, business analysis and Business Relationship Management specialties in a fast-paced and challenging environment. You will be expected to achieve a significant transformation by both embedding and maturing the function, developing integrated ways of working, as well as contributing to the overall transformation of DDS as a leading member of the senior leadership team. The role holder will ensure that these functions are seamlessly integrated with each other and into the rest of DDS to provide a unified design service to the rest of the directorate and the larger enterprise.
Job description
Provide a bridge between the technical and non-technical, especially at senior executive and board levels, to help others at all levels understand and support the digital strategy and the role of individual products and initiatives in building towards the target state architecture.
Lead with a clear vision of the target state architecture, including an expert view of all the components needed and how they interrelate, particularly in the context of public procurement and ongoing procurement reform initiatives.
Provide thought leadership on both user-level and API-based services, and how these can be further developed and exploited across public procurement to build an ecosystem of services to improve transparency and increase commercial benefits.
Be a key stakeholder and point of contact for external partners across Government for the design of CCS digital products and services, explain the benefits of these services and how they fit into the overall digital roadmap.
Building, leading and running the Design Team, consisting of Product Management, User Research & UX and Service Design, Business Analysis, Enterprise and Solutions Architecture, Business Relationship Management and Continuous Improvement.
Provide thought leadership on and input to the business strategy, including advising on how to turn standardised technology components into improved business services based around user needs, and the roadmap to deliver these in an innovative and effective manner.
Leading on developing a digital strategy which aligns to and delivers upon the business strategy, and producing a roadmap to deliver on this.
Providing a broad digital perspective to the Design team and across DDS, and setting standards for them to follow, including the appropriate application of agile design and the creation of an environment for success.
Understanding and directing the product management team to ensure that products and services are well-managed throughout their lifecycle, with clear backlogs and roadmaps for each product.
Understanding how each product and its component services fits into business platforms and is aligned to the digital and business strategies.
Directing on the strategic ownership of products and ensuring that the product management team are discerning and focussed on the most important aspects of their products.
Ensuring that all new products start with a clear appraisal of user needs, starting at (or prior) to a mandate stage with discovery, through to final business case, delivery and persisting throughout the product’s operational life.
Ensuring that the user research team improve and innovate their practices and generate clear and valuable findings that can be used both for specific products and throughout business planning and development of a strategic roadmap.
Developing and advocating for evidence based service design as a discipline, ensuring that service design is embedded into the design and development of new products and services.
Provide direction to the business analysis teams on the most appropriate tools and methodologies, introducing new ones where appropriate.
Reviewing and approving current and target business models and directing the team in areas of research focus, ensuring especially that all stakeholder concerns are addressed and that requirements are fully traceable.
Lead and provide direction on architectural governance, including setting and maintaining architecture principles and standards, ensuring that service designs conform to architecture guidance and provide good technical fit with the existing and planned technology ecosystem.
Leading and participating in a number of functional and corporate governance boards, including the Architecture Design Authority as well as financial and commercial boards to ensure new proposals are aligned to the business and digital strategies.
Person specification
Essential Criteria (to be assessed at application stage):
Experience of directly leading multi-disciplinary teams, setting a clear vision for how they can work together to deliver excellent digital products and services;
Experience of working at a senior level in a challenging and fast-paced environment, especially being reactive to changing requirements while simultaneously ensuring long-term objectives can still be met;
Experience of agile development and the full delivery lifecycle from inception to decommissioning.
Excellent stakeholder management at all levels and an ability to explain detailed, complex concepts and plans in a concise and clear manner
Experience of delivering a large scale digital transformation
Lead on innovation and creativity e.g. use of automation through AI in all disciplines product development, user experience and architecture.
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £75,000, Crown Commercial Service contributes £22,275 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
Things you need to know
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Technical skills.Selection Process
Candidates who are successful at sift will be contacted as soon as possible following the closing date and advised of the interview process in more detail. The sift will commence WC 8th July and interviews will be held on WC 29th July either at one of our offices or via video with interview times and dates to be confirmed. (Subject to change)
Assessment
If you are shortlisted, you will be asked to complete online psychometric tests and a feedback session with an Occupational Psychologist (allow up to 4.5 hours for this). You will also be asked to take part in a staff engagement exercise. These assessments will not result in a pass or fail decision. Rather, they are designed to support the panel's decision making and highlight areas for the panel to explore further at interview.
To find out more about our recruitment process please click here
Please note: Applicants can make use of artificial intelligence but the information presented at application must be factual.
A reserve list may be held for up to 6 months, which the Civil Service may use to fill future suitably similar vacancies across government for candidates who are considered appointable following interview. Should you be placed on a reserve list and want to be removed please contact recruitment@crowncommercial.gov.uk.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist 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
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.