Principal Technologist

£76,420 - £103,924 (London) / £69,523 - £91,453 (National) Based on capability.
Published on 8 April 2025 Deadline 21 April 2025

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

• joining up public sector services
• harnessing the power of AI for the public good
• strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
• elevating leadership and investing in talent
• funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
• committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need.

This role is in the Office of the Government Chief Technology Officer (OCTO). We published the State of Digital Government report, own the Cloud First Policy, created the AI Playbook.

The Principal Technologists in GDS’s Office of the Government CTO function exist to make building great technology easier in the UK Public Sector. In this role you can help central and local government, the NHS, Police, as well as 1,000+ agencies and other bodies. By setting strategies, principles, standards and identifying best practice, as well as supporting the adoption and embedding of these into the public sector, you’ll help your 100,000+ digital and data colleagues in these organisations deliver transformational change.

Our Principal Technologists are currently focussed on Artificial Intelligence, Engineering Excellence, Cloud & Platforms, Technology Management and Digital Workplace, making these easier for organisations of all sizes. They create strategy and identify opportunities for these technologies for the UK Public Sector.

You will manage and mentor a Lead Technologist aligned to you and your team, who can support you when you need to rapidly deep-dive into a topic to achieve your team’s outcomes.

As Principal Technologist you will be leading a team including lead technologists, engagement leads and a delivery manager to:

• Set a 10-year intent and strategy for the field you are aligned to, and gain endorsement for this
• Identify and develop existing principles, standards and best practice and promote them, or form and lead a group of technologists from across UK Public Sector to create these
• Work with vendors to maximise their offer to UK Public Sector, and with Government Commercial Function in commercial engagements with vendors
• Build a network of peers across UK Public Sector to regularly engage with
• Promote your work through content written for GOV.UK, speaking engagements and hosting community events
• Help upskill others across UK Public Sector in your specialist area

The above list of job duties is not exclusive or exhaustive and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

These roles have a scale and impact unlike many others: we are routinely involved in commercial engagements worth £billions, respond to pan-Government technology questions from ministers, and provide advice to other international governments.

Please don’t let this sound intimidating; if you could see yourself in this role, we’d like to hear from you.

Person specification

We're interested in people who:

• have experience setting a vision and leading digital and data change
• have experience designing and building technology and be able to use this to build credibility with others, evaluate proposals and decide an execution approach
• have experience engaging with suppliers/vendors both formally and informally
• are comfortable in creating written content and presenting to senior stakeholders, both technical (such as CTOs / CDOs across Government) and non-technical (including ministers and permanent secretaries)
• ensure learning is embedded in the way you approach your working week, and you should be keen to share your learning with those around you through coaching and mentoring
• are at the top skill levels in your Digital & Data specialism, most likely from the Architecture, Data, IT Operations or Software Development groups
• hold relevant industry certifications for your technical specialism.

The benefits of working at GDS

There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:

• flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
• a Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
• 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
• an extra day off for The King’s birthday
• an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• cycle to work scheme and facilities
• access to children's holiday play schemes across different locations in central London
• access to an employee discounts scheme
• 10 learning days per year
• volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
• access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.

DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

Things you need to know

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• a simple application screening process - a CV and 2 application questions
• A Short video submission in response to a scenario' details will be shared to candidates that are successful at the application stage
• Finally a 60 minute video interview where you give examples in situation-task-action-result format

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

In order to assist candidates with this role, we will be holding a virtual recruitment event on Friday 11th April at 1:00pm - 2:00pm to go through the role in more detail. If you are interested in joining this event please e-mail: gds-recruitment@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk and a member of the team will send you an invitation to the event.

While we value the use of AI technology to enhance our daily work, we also value the personal touch and urge applicants to write cover letters without the use of AI to emphasise their own unique experiences.

In the event we receive a high volume of applications, we will conduct the initial sift against the lead criteria which is:

• Describe a time when you used your technical background to set strategic priorities that an organisation or multiple organisations have adopted. Use “I” rather than “we” language, and you should use the STAR format. This question will be assessed based on the Civil Service Behaviour: Seeing the Bigger Picture

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework for the Principal Technical Architect role:

• Making and guiding decisions
• Communicating between the technical and non-technical
• Understanding the whole context

Recruitment Timeline

Sift completion: Friday 25th April

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

Please note that this role requires SC clearance, which would normally need 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years. This is not an absolute requirement, but supplementary checks may be needed where individuals have not lived in the UK for that period. This may mean your security clearance (and therefore your appointment) will take longer or, in some cases, not be possible.

For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers.

Other information

In January 2025, it was announced that the Government Digital Service (GDS) will move to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as a part of a machinery of government change. This change aims to bring together the digital transformation of public services into one central department, presenting exciting opportunities and positioning DSIT to lead the government’s digital agenda.

This role is in scope to transfer to DSIT when the machinery of government change takes place. As a result, if you are successful and appointed by Cabinet Office to this role before 1st June 2025, your role will transfer from Cabinet Office to DSIT at the time of the relevant machinery of government change taking place. If your start date is after 1 June 2025, you will be appointed direct to DSIT and your appointment will be unaffected by the machinery of government change. We are currently consulting with our Trade Unions on which policies, terms and conditions will apply on transfer. The statement of changes applied to all other Cabinet Office staff will also apply to you if you are successful.

We encourage you to apply and look forward to reviewing your application. We will keep you updated throughout the process.

Sponsorship

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.