Deputy Director of Digital Architecture and Design

Crown Commercial Service (CCS) delivers commercial benefits for the UK central government, arm’s length bodies and the wider public sector, with a vision to be the provider of choice for public sector organisations seeking commercial and procurement solutions. CCS aims to be trusted and admired by buyers and suppliers for our expertise and the quality of the services we offer, and the solutions we provide. In the last 12 months we reported delivering £3.8 billion of commercial benefits, with a spend throughput of £31 billion.

Our purpose is to help the UK public sector get better value for money from its procurement of goods and services. We do this by establishing and managing outstanding customer focused commercial agreements for common goods and services, bringing to bear our category expertise and procurement capability so that our customers can buy as effectively and efficiently as possible.

As a result of our continued growth and digital transformation, we are looking for a Deputy Director of Digital Architecture and Design to play a pivotal role in the Digital and Data Services (DDS) leadership team, taking direct responsibility for a holistic blend of enterprise and solutions architecture, product management, user research, service design, business analysis, and business relationship management specialities in a fast-paced and challenging environment.

In this position you will be expected to achieve a significant transformation by both embedding and maturing the functions, developing integrated ways of working, as well as significantly contributing to the overall transformation of DDS as a leading member of the senior leadership team. This is much more than a ‘steady state’ design role as the appointee will be instrumental in optimising the setup of the function and its running.

The role holder will ensure that these functions are seamlessly integrated with each other and into the rest of DDS to provide a unified design service to the rest of the directorate and the larger enterprise.

Key Accountabilities:

Provide a bridge between the technical and non-technical, especially at senior executive and board levels, to help others at all levels understand and support the digital strategy.
Lead with a clear vision of the target state architecture, including an expert view of all the components needed and how they interrelate.
Provide thought leadership on both user-level and API-based services.
Be a key stakeholder and point of contact for external partners across Government for the design of CCS digital products and services.
Building, leading and running the Design Team, consisting of Product Management, User Research & UX and Service Design, Business Analysis, Enterprise and Solutions Architecture, Business Relationship Management and Continuous Improvement.
Provide thought leadership on and input to the business strategy.
Leading on developing a digital strategy which aligns to and delivers upon the business strategy and producing a roadmap to deliver on this.
Providing a broad digital perspective to the Design team and across DDS, and setting standards for them to follow, including the appropriate application of agile design and the creation of an environment for success.
Directing on the strategic ownership of products and ensuring that the product management team are discerning and focussed on the most important aspects of their products.
Ensuring that the user research team improve and innovate their practices and generate clear and valuable findings that can be used both for specific products and throughout business planning and development of a strategic roadmap.
Developing and advocating for evidence-based service design as a discipline.
Provide direction to the business analysis teams on the most appropriate tools and methodologies.
Lead and provide direction on architectural governance, including setting and maintaining architecture principles and standards.
Leading and participating in several functional and corporate governance boards, including the Architecture Design Authority as well as financial and commercial boards to ensure new proposals are aligned to the business and digital strategies.

This is a challenging and exciting time for both CCS and the public sector, and the Deputy Director of Digital Architecture and Design will be at the forefront of our efforts to ensure we realise our ambitions. Join us, be part of a winning team that will achieve a world-class change in the delivery of public procurement.

Candidates may be based in any of our national locations, including Birmingham, Liverpool, Newport, and Norwich.

If you are interested in applying for this post, please contact Lauren French on 0208 253 1806 or email [email protected].