Chief Technology Officer - Home Office - SCS1

  • Government Digital & Data
  • 05/05/2026
Full time Information Technology Telecommunications Management

Job Description

Location

Cardiff, Croydon, Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield

About the job Job summary

We are looking to recruit 3 Portfolio Chief Technology Officer (CTO) roles. Two of which will support our Migration and Borders Digital Group, and the remaining role will support our Enterprise Services teams.

As a key member of the Home Office Government Digital and Data Profession leadership team, you will play a critical role in providing Government Digital and Data services at the Home Office, supporting vital national infrastructure and Home Office services. Your role will involve supporting a user-base of 35,000+ Home Office users, over 400 public-facing services used by millions, and diverse critical business areas including UK Visa & Immigration, Border Force, HMPO and policing.

As a Deputy Director Portfolio CTO, you will be accountable for leading the technical strategy for the Portfolio, and the wider technology professional community. You will provide technical direction for the delivery of government services, leading design, build and management activity across all areas of architecture, infrastructure, security and engineering. You will identify underlying technology requirements to support business platform capability and lead a team of technology specialists to create cutting-edge services.

You will be required to build strategic, collaborative and constructive relationships with a growing ecosystem of digital and third-party technology suppliers. This will include championing emerging standards, principles or policies to support with this collaboration.

You will identify how technical teams can become leaner by removing unnecessary overheads and advising on how they can deliver more with existing capabilities. Through establishing effective ways of working, you will ensure that we meet our commitments, increasing the certainty of the outcomes we achieve. You will be accountable for ensuring that we deliver to cost and quality standards and managing risks and dependencies across multiple teams.

We are looking for someone who is strategic and forward thinking in terms of how we engage with the business, use technology and achieve our long-term goals. You will strive to deliver better outcomes and value for money by encouraging and embedding a culture of continuous improvement within the portfolio and across wider technology teams.

As a leader within Home Office Government Digital and Data Profession and the Portfolio, you will inspire others and establish a team and a culture that individuals feel proud to be apart of.

Job description

For full details of all three roles, please see the Candidate Pack on the Civil Service website.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate experience of:

  • Providing clear technical leadership and authority across technology, platforms and architecture within a large, complex organisation.
  • Setting and owning enterprise-level technology and platform direction, translating organisational goals into coherent strategy, priorities and investment decisions.
  • Leading and influencing across a matrixed, federated organisation, building trusted relationships with stakeholders at all levels (including senior leaders and non-technical audiences).
  • Understanding cyber security, risk management and assurance in a highly regulated enterprise context, and assessing and clearly articulating technical risk and architectural maturity to senior stakeholders.
  • Embedding architecture governance, standards and assurance into business-as-usual delivery to improve consistency, quality and pace.
  • Driving innovation and continuous improvement to increase the efficiency, resilience and value for money of platform and technology services.

Desirable Criteria

It would also be desirable to demonstrate experience of:

  • Operating at executive or senior leadership level within a large or highly regulated organisation, including managing substantial technology investment and making value for money decisions across complex portfolios.
  • Leading significant technology, platform, or digital transformation at scale, including modernisation of legacy and mission critical systems, using modern product led and Agile approaches.
  • Driving cross portfolio collaboration, convergence or reuse of platforms, services, or standards in a multi team environment, with accountability for delivering and operating live services/products that meet user needs and performance expectations.

Interested?

Apply via Civil Service Jobs for full role details.