THE ROLE
You would provide architectural oversight for a benefits modernisation programme, working alongside product managers and engineers to shape solutions across a broad problem space and take them through governance.
The output of this role is written. Technical Design Authority papers, one after another, each covering a different part of the service:
- Migration of Employment and Support Allowance onto a multi-benefit service
- Payments architecture, including the wider convergence work
- A National Insurance contributions eligibility service
- Moving a manual process to a scalable model for complex income tax year calculations
ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS
- Senior technical or solution architecture at SFIA Level 5 or equivalent
- A track record of producing written architecture papers and taking them through a formal design authority or governance board
- Comfort architecting for a live production service rather than a clean sheet
- Working embedded in a multi-disciplinary agile delivery team, with priorities set in sprint planning
- UK government delivery experience
ADVANTAGEOUS
- Payments, benefits, or high-volume transactional and calculation-heavy services
- Previous delivery within this department, or with a Tier 1 systems integrator
- Legacy to strategic migration architecture
THE DETAILS
Rate: £575 per day, inside IR35
Level: SFIA Level 5
Location: Leeds — 2 days per week on site
Contract: 12 months from start
Start: As soon as available
Clearance: To be confirmed — expect standard departmental vetting
WHY THIS ONE
Twelve months rather than six, on a programme with work already mapped out into 2027.
That is a genuinely stable engagement by contract standards.
It is also a role where the thinking is the deliverable.
If you are an architect who is good on paper and good in the room defending a decision, this plays to exactly that.