GDS looks for Gov.uk head of technology and architecture

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is looking to hire a Gov.uk head of technology and architecture to drive the programme forward.

GDS is offering up to £85,000 for the role for someone with practical experience and expertise in the field, including in security.

According to the job advert, the new head will have a range of responsibilities around the programme, including developing the future Gov.uk strategy, leading on architecture and engineering, and ensuing engineering standards and guidelines “are clearly established and communicated, making sure these are fit for purpose, and aligned with existing and emerging GDS principles and standards”.

In a blog post explaining more about the role, GDS head of technology, Tim Blair, said it is moving away from Gov.uk being simply a publishing system, “towards a platform for content, accounts and data sharing across government”.

“We’re beginning the change from a static publishing model, which is highly cacheable at the page level, to one which is dynamic, both in terms of content and context for the current user,” Blair said.

“This future, in which we aim to make a step-change in how people can interact with government digitally, presents a unique opportunity to shape the technical architecture and delivery of technology across Gov.uk. We’re looking for the person to lead this work as Gov.uk’s head of technology and architecture.”

He added that Gov.uk has a services-based architecture, relying on essential static pages and heavy caching, which has served government well for the past eight years. Now, however, government has recently launched Gov.uk Accounts and wants to move towards more personalisation.

“We are now trialling the first version of a Gov.uk Accounts. To expand these ideas further and realise our vision of joined-up services across Gov.uk will require architecture, technical design, operational delivery and security that is very different to that of a publishing platform,” said Blair.

“This role will report to one of Gov.uk’s new deputy directors, and will directly line manage four to six senior technologists, but be the head of the line management tree (and therefore ultimately responsible) for all technologists in the programme.”