Senior technical architect

Band 8a · Technical architect · 560 job evaluation points

UK GDaD PCF level: Senior technical architect

Most often performed at Civil Service grade SEO or G7.

A senior technical architect works on large or multiple pieces of work that are complex or risky.
At this role level, you will:
define strategy and be central to assuring services
regularly collaborate and find agreement with senior stakeholders, providing direction and challenge
be proactive in identifying problems and translating these into non-technical descriptions that can be widely understood
mentor and coach junior colleagues

Contains public sector information from the UK Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework (https://understand-digital-data-roles-skills.service.gov.uk/), licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. © Crown copyright.

Responsibilities

Lead the technical design of large, complex, or high-risk services, such as clinical systems and shared integration platforms.
Set technical direction for one or more delivery teams and challenge designs that add risk.
Design for resilience, disaster recovery, and secure running, and check that teams test it.
Explain technical risks and trade-offs to service owners, clinical leads, and senior stakeholders in plain language.
Mentor and coach technical architects and senior developers.

Skills

Skill	Expected level	What this level means
Architect for the whole contextUK GDaD PCF	Working (2)	You can: align your work with the work being done by other architects and technical professionals track emerging issues, strategies, roadmaps, patterns and technologies over time to assess opportunities and risks to your work identify how other teams contribute to delivering outcomes through change
Architecture communicationUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: lead the communication of complicated, complex or risky architecture topics with technical and non-technical stakeholders communicate with senior stakeholders across your organisation adapt your message and communication techniques to your audience advocate on behalf of a team to other stakeholders manage stakeholder expectations effectively
Community collaborationUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: work collaboratively in a group, actively networking with others adapt feedback to ensure it’s effective and lasting use your initiative to identify problems or issues in the team dynamic and rectify them identify issues through Agile ‘health checks’ with the team, and help to stimulate the right responses
Making architectural decisionsUK GDaD PCF	Working (2)	You can: work with others to make architectural design decisions characterised by managed levels of risk and complexity identify and address architectural risks relevant to your team or domain, for example, business, data, or security engage with architectural governance and assurance to effectively manage decisions and risks, with support
Strategy designUK GDaD PCF	Working (2)	You can: support the development of a strategy or vision that aligns with organisational objectives challenge requirements and assumptions, and identify opportunities to develop strategy support the implementation of a strategy or vision, for example, by using a roadmap or plan use architectural principles, patterns, and constraints when appropriate
Technical design throughout the life cycleUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: create technical designs characterised by medium risk, impact, and complexity maintain appropriate quality and architectural coherence of a technical design in response to change use feedback to optimise and refine technical designs throughout the life cycle
Understanding health and care servicesThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: analyse how a service fits into care pathways across organisations work with clinicians, care staff, and patients to shape digital services explain the effect of digital decisions on care, safety, and staff workload
Health data interoperabilityThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: design and build integrations using FHIR, HL7 version 2, and messaging patterns write and profile FHIR resources and implementation guides resolve complex mapping and data quality issues between systems
Information governance and data protectionThis reference	Working (2)	You can: apply data protection principles to your work contribute to data protection impact assessments handle information requests and records correctly
Clinical risk managementThis reference	Working (2)	You can: take part in hazard workshops and contribute to a hazard log follow the clinical risk management process for your work provide evidence for a clinical safety case, such as test results
Identity and access managementThis reference	Working (2)	You can: create, change, and remove user accounts and access rights check access against role-based access rules
Medical device software regulationThis reference	Awareness (1)	You can: explain that some health software is regulated as a medical device know who to ask when a product might be a medical device

Typical qualifications and experience

Substantial experience of technical design for complex services, at a level equivalent to a master's degree.

Band 8a outline

Knowledge: Expert knowledge of a discipline and its management.
Autonomy: Interprets organisational policy for a service; sets the team's direction.
Scope: A service area or a discipline across the organisation.
Leadership: Manages a team, or leads a discipline without line management.
Accountability: A service area, its staff, and its budget.

Job evaluation (illustrative)

Factor	Level	Level summary	Points
Communication and relationship skills	5	Gives highly complex or contentious information needing developed persuasion and negotiation, presents to large groups, or communicates where there are significant barriers to acceptance.	45
Knowledge, training, and experience	7	Highly developed specialist knowledge across the range of the specialism (master's level or equivalent).	196
Analytical and judgemental skills	5	Judgements on highly complex facts or situations needing analysis, interpretation, and comparison of options.	60
Planning and organisational skills	4	Plans a broad range of complex activities or strategies, adjusting them as needed.	42
Physical skills	2	Skills gained through practice, such as standard keyboard use or driving.	15
Responsibility for patient and client care	1	Helps patients, clients, or relatives during incidental contact.	4
Responsibility for policy and service development	4	Implements policy and develops policy or services for a service or several areas.	32
Responsibility for financial and physical resources	2	Handles cash or valuables, looks after equipment used by others, controls stock, or authorises small payments.	12
Responsibility for people	3	Manages a group of staff day to day, teaches core or specialist training, or gives core HR advice.	21
Responsibility for information resources	5	Designs and develops major information systems, or runs information systems for several services as the main duty.	34
Responsibility for research and development	3	Carries out research or development within formal programmes as a main duty.	21
Freedom to act	5	Works within general policies, and in most cases decides how to interpret them.	45
Physical effort	1	Sitting, standing, and walking, with little physical effort.	3
Mental effort	4	Frequent prolonged concentration, or occasional intense concentration.	18
Emotional effort	1	Rare exposure, or occasional indirect exposure, to distressing circumstances.	5
Working conditions	2	Occasional unpleasant conditions, frequent travel or outdoor work, or near-continuous screen use on most days.	7
Total (Band 8a: 540 to 584)			560

Banded above the UK GDaD PCF grade suggestion (Band 7): health-sector adverts place this role at Band 8a. Planning, policy, and freedom to act are scored above the Band 7 profile because the job sets technical direction for several teams with little supervision.