Enterprise Architect

Job summary

The NHS Business Services Authority provides critical services to NHS organisations, NHS contractors, patients and the public.

Our drive to make things easier for our customers has seen us increase the digitisation of services and we're using new technology to deliver efficiencies and improve customer experience. We gather data to help the NHS make more informed decisions, as well as reduce fraud, error, and waste. We also contribute to the wider health agenda in terms of prevention and health inequalities.

An opportunity has arisen for an Enterprise Architect to join a small Enterprise Architecture team as an integral member of the DDaT Governance function within the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) Directorate to lead the strategic design and development of enterprise solutions for the organisation.

The Enterprise Architects play a critical role working in partnership with the business and DDaT colleagues to develop strategy, understand business need and deliver enterprise solutions. You will also work with your colleagues to mature and embed enterprise architecture as a core practice.

What do we offer?

27 days leave (increasing with length of service) plus 8 bank holidays Flexible working (options such as compressed hours) Flexi time Hybrid working model (we are currently working largely remotely) Career development Active wellbeing and inclusion networks Excellent pension scheme NHS Car lease scheme Access to a wide range of benefits and high street discounts

Main duties of the job

Working in partnership with the business and DDaT colleagues to develop strategy, understand business need and deliver enterprise solutions.

Taking a holistic approach to design, develop a re-use approach andownership across the NHSBSA for Technology, architectural strategy, and standards. You will be responsible for NHSBSA architecture governance forums and for solutions designed for significant areas of the business.

Define clearly "as-is" and "to-be" architectures anddocument solution architectures for business services and integration in the overall Enterprise Architecture. Preparation of technical artifacts for submission into Government Digital Standards (GDS) assessments; and business cases, both internal and external.

Undertake and lead on investigative analysis, facilitate scoping and priority setting of large or highly complex changes, providing optionsappraisals and recommendations to feed into business cases providing accurate cost estimation, and selecting the most appropriate means to communicate information.

Concentrated work tackling uncertain and complex business problems, translating designs both logical and physical tosupport user friendly processes and systems, and communication of this across business areas.

Taking a leading role to identify and share good practices, through leading and directing relevant communities of practice to drive adoption of design standards, trends and patterns.Maturing and embedding of the enterprise architecture function.

About us

Here at the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA), what we do matters.

We manage the NHS Pension scheme, process prescription payments and much more. Our services are used by NHS organisations, contractors and the public: we take pride in being part of something so meaningful, that touches millions of lives.

Just as we design our services around the needs of our customers, we place our people at the heart of our organisation. That's why when you join us, you'll be empowered and given the right support to help your career grow.

As one of the UK's Best Big Companies to work for, we're all connected to our values: Collaborative, Adventurous, Reliable and Energetic. We care about our people, our purpose, and your progress.

We strive to offer a fantastic colleague experience, where every voice is heard, and every colleague is supported and respected. Wellbeing, diversity and inclusion is at the centre of this, so when you join us, you can connect with our Lived Experience Networks who help us to bring our authentic selves to work.

We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and circumstances. We are committed and proud to be a flexible employer and will endeavour to offer a working pattern that suits you wherever possible, whether that be hybrid working, flexible hours, job sharing and more.

Ready to join us on our journey to be a catalyst for better health? Apply today and see where the NHSBSA can take you.

We are people connected to care.

Job description

Job responsibilities

In this role you are accountable for:

1. Take a holistic approach to design, develop a re-use approach as much as possible and have ownership across the BSA for Technology architectural standards, project or programme IT architecture, leading a team of multi-disciplined architects; you will be responsible for NHSBSA governance forums, IT solutions designed for significant areas of the business.

2. Define clearly as-is and to-be architectures and clearly document the solution architectures for the business service and its integration in the overall Enterprise Architecture. Preparation of technical artifacts for submission into GDS assessments; and business cases, both internal and external.

3. Undertake and lead on investigative analysis, facilitate scoping and priority setting of large or highly complex changes, providing options appraisals and recommendations, to feed into business cases providing accurate cost estimation, and selecting the most appropriate means to communicate information.

4. Frequent concentrated work tackling uncertain and highly complex business problems, translating designs both logical and physical to support user friendly processes and systems, and communication of this across business areas.

5. Set direction on the introduction and application of specific standards, tools, techniques and methods to meet requirements ensuring consistency across the community of Technical Analysts is fully aligned to organisational approaches, designs, standards and metrics.

6. Provide hands-on leadership of a multidisciplinary scrum team and interdisciplinary team of architects including mentoring, quality assurance processes and standards;

7. Full responsibility for multiple systems and services across the organisation, monitoring the development of new and emerging tools, technologies and products to assess potential value and identifying opportunities to enhance capabilities, products and services within the organisation.

8. Taking a leading role to identify and share good practices, through leading and directing relevant communities of practice to drive adoption of design standards, trends and patterns.

Staff Management

9. Responsible and accountable for management of staff, staff development, recruitment, resources, delivery and financial elements, applying a matrix management approach with staff within professional disciplines across multidisciplinary teams;

10. Enabling the performance of others, including objectives setting fully aligned to departmental and organisational objectives and goals, and the development and motivation of staff to achieve them, including implementing and conducting appraisals and 1-1s to manage performance.

11. Planning, formulating and organising a broad range of highly complex plans, adjusting the strategic direction and adjusting those plans and then cascade to the team. Develop the architectural teams resource and training plans and set standards expected in workforce management. Identify and collate training needs and a blended approach to meeting these needs that supports the continual professional development of a highly skilled workforce.

12. Receive and act upon, and where possible resolve a range of escalations including staffing, disciplinary, resourcing business and technical, to secure satisfactory outcomes. Where unable to resolve, providing sufficient detail, escalate to the appropriate levels within the organisations, within agreed policies, procedures and processes to ensure appropriate resolution.

13. Undertake recruitment and selection in line with organisational processes and participate in the implementation and delivery of initiatives to secure suitable resources, increase skills levels and develop talent pools to meet the changing needs of the business landscape.

14. Seeking, providing and taking feedback to support and encourage teams and individuals to develop thinking and independently work through issues, to reach solutions-based outcomes. Taking full accountability for the approach and decision-making practices within area, including providing positive challenge to ideas and solutions.

Knowledge Management

15. Frequent individual concentrated work on highly complex and uncertain business problems, leading on the strategic oversight of any new research initiatives, legislation, working practices, policies, procedures, contracts and systems and keeping abreast of technological advances to maintain an excellent understanding of the use of technology in delivering business objectives.

16. To continually develop domain knowledge and expertise at the forefront of sector. Investigate research and development to support future business needs and develop an understanding of emerging technologies and business opportunities across a range of topics and engage in the support and development of the organisation, department and team.

17. Taking ownership for decision making within own area and where needed developing a solution iteratively as required, in conjunction withagreed procedures.

Financial Management

18. Budget holder for the architecture team in accordance with NHSBSA's policies, standing orders, financial regulations and legislative requirements, and the development of business plans including highly sensitive data.

19. Develop proposals for future investment including both technology refresh and project- based change; preparing necessary estimates, mandates and business cases within the technology department and providing estimates for such led by other departments.

20. Develop and monitor IM&T budgets on major systems and projects. Policy and Service Development

21. Full responsibility for policy development and implementation across the Technology team and cascade across the entire organisation.

Relationship Management

22. Identify and develop partnership working opportunities, and relationships both within the organisation, with its stakeholders, and to liaise with other Government, Non-Government organisations, statutory agencies and public and private sector organisations to develop collaborative approaches which can deliver value to the organisation.

23. Participate in the evaluation, benchmarking, specification and procurement of hardware, software and services, ensuring sensitive handling of commercial and financial information, whilst ensuring compliance with Government policy for use of SMEs, Information Security, NHS Confidentiality and Data Protection legislation.

Information Management

24. Full responsibility for multiple systems and services across the organisation, the approval and implementation of processes to review, analyse, monitor and report on a number of areas including agreed service levels, KPI's and standards within team. Reviewing the performances of teams and projects in delivery of services against defined service levels, checking for trends that may trigger reduced performance and investigating where performance is below the agreed thresholds. Ensure that in managing performance a holistic approach is taken and that consideration is given to people, process, changes in demand and tools.

Delivery Management

25. Input into workforce planning, ensuring required operational commitments are fully met, business change is estimated, prioritised, and delivered, resourcing issues are identified, mitigated and managed to deliver business value.

26. Leading, managing and engaging teams to deliver multiple strands of work such as continuous improvement, project related work, and operational tasks, both within the organisation and across external bodies to meet strategic goals and deliver high quality outputs for theorganisation.

27. Leading on strategic procurement of hardware and software for various areas of the organisation, including selecting suppliers, accountability for delivery of quality outputs, meeting delivery timescales. Giving full consideration to cost, specification, maintenance and support to ensure the overall needs of the business are met from an ICT perspective, and that they are aligned with the business and ICT strategic directions.

In addition to the above accountabilities, as post holder you are expected to:

Undertake any other duties and responsibilities as agreed with your line manager and commensurate with your role

Demonstrate the business values and behaviors in all aspects of your conduct at work.

Ensure and maintain a safe working environment which reflects the business health and safety policies and practices.

Be familiar with and adopt policies and practices governing finance, budgets and the procurement of services.

Ensure your behavior reflects a commitment to and the benefits of equality and diversity in the workplace

Working relationships:

Responsible to: Head of Technology Governance

Responsible for: Architecture Team

Key Connections: Directors Senior Business stakeholders ICT Service Managers Senior ICT Suppliers ICT Intelligent Client Managers and Staff Peer Networks in Architecture, Service Management and Intelligent Client functions

Person Specification

Specialist Skill/Knowledge

Essential

Business change, rationalisation and transformation and implementation of strategic approaches, plans, activities and solutions. Evaluation, interpretation, translation and communication of complex data/information from multiple sources and requirements to inform decision making. Design of cost effective and scalable enterprise solutions, from development through to implementation in a multisupplier environment. Provide business assurance of supplier's designs and proposals. A range of skills and specialism across a diverse and detailed technical knowledge, covering web applications and services, information, infrastructure, cloud and managed service architectures. Planning and organisational skills across a broad range of o A variety of approaches to hosted solutions and data centres including co-Location (and integration into Service Management models) o Working to GDS Principles and having participated in GDS assessments Approval body Certification Interview activities to support the delivery of project planning and resource management. Communicating and negotiating with external bodies, suppliers and organisations to reach satisfactory outcomes for the NHSBSA.

Desirable

A variety of approaches to hosted solutions and data centres including co-Location (and integration into Service Management models) Working to GDS Principles and having participated in GDS assessments

Experience

Essential

On-going professional development Leading and managing staff to deliver organisational goals and objectives Engaging and building relationships with a range of stakeholders to support delivery of business outcomes Creatively interpreting strategy and translate emerging trends and technologies to deliver innovative solutions which might impact or benefit the organisation including: Cloud technology, Mobile devices and apps and Collaborative working tools Devising comprehensive architecture for enterprise scale, high-volume digital services and initiatives that deliver capacity, performance and system availability improvements that ensure business targets are met or exceeded. Devising architectural standards and designs, iteratively to meet the needs of the organisational approaches and in line with GDS standards. Dealing with a number of strands of work in tandem, coupled with prolonged periods requiring high levels of concentration to provide high quality outputs, including the development of technical solution artifacts for inclusion in Business Cases, to be used both internally and externally to the NHSBSA. Providing full solutions design for complex systems and services, including developing and implementing solution and enterprise and application architecture in a multi supplier environment. Managing budgets to maintain effective cost analysis and projection. Engaging and communicating with a range of stakeholders, up to and including board level.

Desirable

Analysing digital / web services in a fast-paced environment. Open source and cloud technologies and their sourcing. Experience of migrating services across different Data Centre locations and legacy application consolidation. Solution and service design and delivery within an Agile development environment. Conforming to financial standards within a commercial environment.

Qualifications

Essential

An IT related degree or equivalent plus significant demonstrable experience in two of the following: IT Architecture (digital and service) , System Design, Business and Technical Analysis, Management of a significant ICT implementation OR Significant demonstrable experience in at least three of the following: IT Architecture, System and Service Design, Business and Technical Analysis or Management of a significant ICT implementation

Desirable

TOGAF certification or equivalent, or willing to work towards this certification Experience of working in an agile environment and experience with agile methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban ITIL or SIAM Certification Undertaken GDS Assessor training

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