Job Description
Principal Enterprise Architect
Location: National*
Closing Date: 16th February
Interviews: after the 4th of March
Grade: 6
(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)
Salary (for more information, please refer to the T&Cs at the bottom):
London: £75,674 - £93,025 (may include an allowance of up to £17,351)
National: £71,381 - £88,900 (may include an allowance of up to £17,519)
Working pattern: Full-time, part-time, flexible working
Contract Type: Perm
Vacancy number: 14266
*We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your local office. Office locations can be found ON THIS MAP
The Role
We’re recruiting for a Principal Enterprise Architect here at Justice Digital, to be part of our warm and collaborative team. This role sits within the Office of the CTO within the Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for architecture and engineering across the MoJ and owns the newly commissioned Technical Design Authority for the department. We work in collaboration with individual business units and Arm’s Length Bodies to align technology and operate platforms for the benefit of the products and teams dependent upon them.
We’re establishing a dedicated Enterprise Architecture function to support the Ministry of Justice’s growing and evolving needs – enabling delivery of strategic and transformational priorities, including major reform programmes such as the independent sentencing review recommendations. This is an exciting opportunity for a Principal Enterprise Architect to shape the department’s architecture from the ground up, leading an end-to-end journey from strategic intent through to delivery and implementation.
As our first permanent Principal Enterprise Architect, you’ll establish and lead the Enterprise Architecture profession, defining how business, application, data, and technology architectures align to support outcomes across prisons, courts, probation, and wider justice services. Reporting to the Chief Architect, you’ll work in close partnership with senior leaders, Principal Architects and Digital teams across multiple portfolios, ensuring our architectural foundations are coherent, interoperable, and future-ready.
You’ll set direction and standards, provide strategic architectural leadership for complex, cross-cutting initiatives, and help the department make informed investment and design decisions. You will build and lead a high-performing team of enterprise architects, work closely with delivery teams, product leaders, and technical specialists, and shape how architecture is practiced, governed, and assured across the Ministry of Justice.
This role aligns against the Principal enterprise architect role from the Government Digital and Data Framework
To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025
Key Responsibilities
You will:
- Establish and lead the Enterprise Architecture function for the Ministry of Justice, setting a clear vision, operating model, and ways of working.
- Champion Enterprise Architecture as a key enabler of transformation, value for money, and long-term sustainability.
- Represent Enterprise Architecture in senior governance, legal and commercial conversations.
- Translate departmental strategy, policy intent, and reform priorities into coherent Enterprise Architecture roadmaps.
- Support strategic investment decisions by assessing architectural options, trade-offs, risks, and dependencies.
- Identify and address cross-cutting design risks and remove strategic blockers.
- Define, own, and evolve Enterprise Architecture principles, standards, patterns, and reference architectures.
- Coach and support architects and senior stakeholders to make good design choices.
If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!
Benefits
- 37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours.
- A £1k per person learning budget is in place to support all our people, with access to best in class conferences and seminars, accreditation with professional bodies, fully funded vocational programmes and e-learning platforms.
- Staff have 10% time to dedicate to develop & grow.
- Generous civil service pension based on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 28.97% from April 1st 2024 (Contribution Rates).
- 25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and 1 privilege day usually taken around the King’s birthday. 5 additional days of leave once you have reached 5 years of service.
- Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!
- Wellbeing support including access to the Calm app.
- Nurturing professional and interpersonal networks including those for Carers & Childcare, Gender Equality, PROUD and SPIRIT.
- Bike loans up to £2500 and secure bike parking (subject to availability and location).
- Season ticket loans, childcare vouchers and eye-care vouchers.
- 5 days volunteering paid leave.
- Some offices may have a subsidised onsite Gym.
Person Specification
Essential:
- Proven track record of establishing or maturing enterprise architecture capability, including defining vision, principles, and operating models.
- Strong ability to translate organisational strategy, policy intent, and business outcomes into coherent enterprise architecture roadmaps.
- Strong understanding of architecture governance and assurance, including designing proportionate governance that enables delivery while managing risk.
- Experience providing architectural leadership at senior levels, influencing decisions across organisational and professional boundaries.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex architectural concepts clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Track record of building, leading, and developing high-performing technical teams, fostering a collaborative and inclusive culture.
- You will hold a recognised certification in an enterprise architecture framework (such as TOGAF), or be able to demonstrate the professional experience and commitment required to work towards achieving this within an agreed timeframe.
Willingness to be assessed against the requirements for SC clearance.
We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate based on culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor.
Six Months in – Building the Women in Engineering Working Group.
Our values are Purpose, Humanity Openness and Together. Find out more here about how we celebrate diversity and an inclusive culture in our workplace.
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 and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.
How to Apply
- Candidates must submit a CV and supporting statement of suitability (750 words max.), which describes how you meet the requirements from the essential criteria, set out below:
- Proven track record of establishing or maturing enterprise architecture capability, including defining vision, principles, and operating models.
- Strong ability to translate organisational strategy, policy intent, and business outcomes into coherent enterprise architecture roadmaps.
Please note, failure to provide the documents as requested for the specific role, will result in a rejection of your application.
- A diverse panel will review your application against those requirements above.
- Successful candidates who meet the required standard will be invited to a 1-hour panel interview held via video conference. Candidates will also be required to provide a 5-minute presentation during the interview stage. Details of the presentation will be sent across prior to interview.
Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on “Proven track record of establishing or maturing enterprise architecture capability, including defining vision, principles, and operating models” will be conducted before the sift.
In Justice Digital, we recruit using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks.
During the interview, we will assess your Experience, Technical Skills and the following Behaviours:
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Leadership
- Communicating and Influencing
- Making Effective Decisions
Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for but demonstrate the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and offer you the position without needing a further application.
A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, from which further appointments may be made.
Application Guidance
Please access the following link for guidance on how to apply and how to complete a Personal Statement
Use of 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 for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Please Note
Recruitment Process Notice
This role is being delivered in partnership with PeopleScout, our managed recruitment service provider. As part of the recruitment process, your personal data will be shared with PeopleScout for the purposes of candidate assessment, communication, and selection.
PeopleScout will process your data on behalf of the Ministry of Justice in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. Your data will be handled securely, used only for recruitment purposes, and retained only as long as necessary.
The Ministry of Justice processes your personal data under the lawful bases of:
- Contractual necessity – to assess and progress your application,
- Legal obligation – for checks such as right to work,
- Legitimate interest – to improve recruitment processes and ensure fair selection.
You have the right to:
- Access your personal data,
- Request correction or deletion,
- Restrict or object to processing,
- Request data portability.
Your data will be retained for up to 12 months following the recruitment process or the duration of the appointment, whichever is shorter, after which it will be securely deleted.
For more information on how your data will be used and your rights under data protection law, please refer to our https://justice.gov.uk/privacy or contact the MoJ Data Protection Team at data.protection@justice.gov.uk
Terms & Conditions
Please review our Terms and Conditions which set out how we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact digitalanddatarecruitment@justice.gov.uk
