Cabinet Office unit is seeking a technology leader whose remit will include spearheading DDaT professionals’ efforts to decommission legacy system

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Government’s Central Digital and Data Office is offering a six-figure salary in its bid to recruit a chief technology officer to oversee the strategy for digital professionals across government, as well as leading their efforts to help departments decommission legacy IT systems.

The strategic plan for the civil service’s Digital, Data and Technology profession should be “focused on engineering, technology and architecture”, according to the job advert.

In addition to overseeing the implementation of such a strategy, the CTO – who will report to CDDO executive director Joanna Davinson – will also provide “functional leadership” for civil servants in technology engineering and architecture roles, including the establishment of “defined career and skills development pathways in place in line with the DDaT pay and capability framework”.

The technology chief, who will earn a salary of between £125,000 and £160,000, will also oversee the creation and implementation of tech architecture governance processes to be delivered by a specialist DDaT Technical Design Authority.

The successful candidate will also be tasked with “advising departments on their solution architectures”, as well as “ensuring government information is safe and secure [and] departmental applications are built to comply with DDaT and regulatory requirements, authentication systems are secure and the hosting platform is resilient to internal and external attack”.

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The role will require “leading the DDaT approach to management and decommissioning of legacy systems in departments”, which will go hand in hand with a remit “identification and management of key areas of technical risk… across government… from technical debt through to product supportability [and] scalability”.

The post will be based in either Bristol, London, or Manchester. Applications are open until 11.55pm on 5 September.

“The CTO will also play a critical role in driving the join up with DDaT professionals in other government departments in helping ministers achieve their ambition of making the UK the world’s leading digital government,” the job advert said. “You will be a strong and credible function leader for engineering, technology and architecture professionals across government.”

As well the senior management-level CTO post, the CDDO is also recruiting for three more junior managerial roles, as head of portfolio, content design, and data security.

The portfolio head – a position for which applications close on Sunday – will be responsible for “governing the programmes and projects that contribute to the delivery of CDDOs objectives”.

The content design position comes with a remit to “set the standards for content in the delivery of government services… [and] make sure content design as a specialism is an integral part of service transformation and the reform of government systems that support it”. Applications are open until 28 August.

The data security leader, meanwhile, will “act as a senior advisor on best practice cross government data security development… [and] deploy multiple levers to ensure the best outcomes”. Candidates have until 5 September to apply.

The trio of positions each come with an salary in the region of £60,000 to £80,000, depending on experience.