Equal opportunitiesAt GCHQ, diversity and inclusion are critical to our mission. This includesdiversity in every sense of the word: people of different backgrounds, ages,ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ways of thinking and thosewith disabilities or neurodivergent conditions. We therefore welcome andencourage applications from everyone, including individuals from groups thatare currently under-represented in our workforce, such as women, peoplefrom ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities and those from lowsocio-economic backgrounds. Visit our website to find out more about our culture, working environment anddiversity.We are Disability ConfidentGCHQ is proud to have achieved Leader status within the Department forWork and Pensions’ Disability Confident scheme. The scheme encouragesemployers to think differently about disability and take action to improve howthey recruit, retain and develop disabled people. As a Disability Confidentorganisation, we aim to ensure that a fair and proportionate number ofdisabled applicants who best meet the essential criteria for this position,assessed at sift, are offered an interview, if it is practical for us to do so. To secure an interview for this role, theminimum criteria (in order of application process) are:

experience designing and owning end-to-end solution architecture,interpreting business and user needs and translating them into designsand artefacts aligned with architecture strategies and standards experience making and owning architectural decisions involving trade-offs(e.g. cost, risk, scalability or maintainability), managing risks anddelivering within governance and standards ability to work effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholdersacross teams or programmes, communicating architectural concepts andinfluencing alignment to agreed solutionsVisit our How to Apply page for more information on the reasonableadjustments we can offer. Virtual interview (assessing your technical skills and the organisationalcompetencies). This role requires the highest security clearance, known as Developed Vetting(DV). It’s something everyone in the UK Intelligence Community undertakes.Please note we have a strict drugs policy, so once you start your application,you can’t take any recreational drugs and you’ll need to declare your previousdrug usage at the relevant stage.This is goodpractice and will help you manage your application with us more securely.Please consider any financial implications and practicalities beforesubmitting an application, as we do not offer relocation costs.

We offer reasonable reimbursement of travel costs for candidates attending in-person appointments during the recruitment and vetting process. If you are based overseas, you should wait until you visit the UK tobegin your application.