Salary: £53,496 to £61,686, comprising a basic salary of £50,838 and a concessionary payment of £2,658. The exact salary offered within this range will depend on your skills and experience. An additional Skills Payment is available once your skills level is confirmed, £3,822 for Level 1 or £8,190 for Level 2.
Overview
As one of our Associate Solutions Architects, you'll help design and deliver technology solutions across GCHQ. Our work is unique, often cutting‑edge, and designed to support our highly specialised national security mission. You will have exceptional opportunities for training, development and continuous learning within an environment unlike that of any other organisation.
Responsibilities
Guided by one of our experienced Solutions Architects, you'll help shape designs, produce architectural artefacts, and be part of the teams that deliver the solutions. You'll create solution designs, documentation and models that align with our architectural standards end to end and strategic direction. You will play a key role in ensuring our solutions remain robust, scalable and cost‑effective. A big part of the job is understanding business needs and helping to define solutions that take technical constraints, delivery plans, risks and complexity into account. With support from your line manager and mentor, you'll answer questions, clarify designs, and adapt solutions as requirements change. Each day brings opportunities to gain practical experience across the lifecycle of our capabilities, learn from experienced architects and build confidence. Occasional travel to sites across the UK will be required so you can work closely with colleagues across the organisation.
Qualifications
* Experience interpreting business and user needs and translating them into maintainable architecture designs and artefacts that align with solutions architecture strategy and standards.
* Experience supporting architectural decision‑making by gathering information, analysing options, and understanding risks and trade‑offs (for example, delivery, impact or technical complexity) while working within governance and standards.
* Ability to work with technical and non‑technical stakeholders within and across teams, communicating architectural concepts clearly and contributing to discussions that support alignment to agreed solutions.
You don't need a degree or any specific qualifications to apply for this role; we’re interested in your experience and your motivation to support our shared mission. A foundational understanding of solution architecture is important, along with experience contributing to the design and delivery of digital or technology solutions. Experience with at least one modern framework, such as TOGAF, NIST and ITIL, is also valuable, typically gained in roles such as software engineering, infrastructure engineering, DevOps.
As you'll be involved in projects from day one, an understanding of how business needs, technology choices and delivery constraints shape solution design will be required. You'll operate independently on moderately complex problems while contributing to broader work led by more senior architects, responsible for delivering architectural design and direction for a specific solution or defined area of delivery. Effective communication skills, combined with a broad technical foundation, will help you to explain design decisions to both technical and non‑technical audiences. Being collaborative, comfortable working across teams and confident in influencing and negotiation, will help in finding solutions that work for everyone. Because priorities may change depending on business needs, you'll need to be adaptable and able to manage your own time. And your ability to think critically and solve problems creatively means you'll be able to find holistic solutions to uniquely challenging requirements.
Inclusive Environment
GCHQ is proud to have achieved Leader status within the Department for Work and Pensions' Disability Confident scheme. The scheme encourages employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people. As a Disability Confident organisation, we aim to ensure that a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants who best meet the essential criteria for this position are offered an interview.
Benefits
* 25 days' annual leave, rising automatically to 30 days after 5 years' service, plus an additional 10.5 days of public and privilege holidays.
* Opportunities to be recognised through our employee performance scheme.
* An interest‑free season ticket loan.
* An excellent pension scheme.
* A cycle to work scheme.
* Facilities such as a gym, restaurant and on‑site coffee bars (at some locations).
* Paid parental and adoption leave.
Flexible Working
We recognise the importance of a healthy work‑life balance and offer a range of working patterns, including full‑time, part‑time and compressed hours. While most of our work is carried out on‑site due to its sensitive nature, occasional home working may be possible depending on business requirements. We also support flexible start and finish times to help you balance your personal and professional commitments.
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