Overview
Associate Solutions Architect Jobs in Cheltenham, UK at Women in Data®
- £55,758 to £63,948 comprising a basic salary of £53,000 and a concessionary payment of £2,758. The exact salary offered within this range will depend on your skills and experience. An additional Skills Payment is available once your skills level is confirmed, £3,822 for Level 1 or £8,190 for Level
2. Once in role, there may also be opportunities to qualify for further allowances and additional skills-related payments.
About us
GCHQ is an intelligence, cyber and security agency with a mission to keep the UK safe. We use cutting‑edge technology, ingenuity and partnerships to identify, analyse and disrupt threats. Working with our intelligence partners, MI5 and MI6, we protect the UK from terrorism, cyber‑attacks and espionage. At GCHQ, you’ll do varied and fascinating work in a supportive and inclusive environment that puts the emphasis on teamwork.
The
role
As one of our Associate Solutions Architects, you’ll help design and deliver technology solutions across GCHQ. Our work is unique, often cutting‑edge, and designed to support our highly specialised national security mission. You’ll gain extensive training, development and continuous learning opportunities within an environment unlike that of any other organisation.
Guided by an experienced Solutions Architect, you’ll help shape designs, produce architectural artefacts, and be part of the teams that deliver the solutions. It’s an excellent opportunity to step into solutions architecture from a background such as software, infrastructure or systems engineering, or to build on your existing architecture experience and grow your career.
In this role, you’ll create solution designs, documentation and models that align with our architectural standards end to end and strategic direction. Experience with at least one modern framework will help you work effectively within our structured ways of working and collaborate with delivery teams, engineers and business colleagues. You’ll play a key role in ensuring our solutions remain robust, scalable and cost‑effective.
A big part of the job is understanding business needs and helping to define solutions that take technical constraints, delivery plans, risks and complexity into account. With support from your line manager and mentor, you’ll answer questions, clarify designs, and adapt solutions as requirements change. Each day brings opportunities to gain practical experience across the lifecycle of our capabilities, learn from experienced architects and build confidence.
Occasional travel to sites across the UK will be required so you can work closely with colleagues across the organisation.
About you
You don’t need a degree or any specific qualifications to apply for this role; we’re interested in your experience and your motivation to support our shared mission. A foundational understanding of solution architecture is important, along with experience contributing to the design and delivery of digital or technology solutions. Experience with at least one modern framework, such as TOGAF, NIST and ITIL, is also valuable, typically gained in roles like software engineering, infrastructure engineering, Dev Ops.
As you’ll be involved in projects from day one, an understanding of how business needs, technology choices and delivery constraints shape solution design will be required. You’ll operate independently on moderately complex problems while contributing to broader work led by more senior architects, responsible for delivering architectural design and direction for a specific solution or defined area of delivery. Effective communication skills, combined with a broad technical foundation, will help you to explain design decisions to both technical and non‑technical audiences.
Being collaborative, comfortable working across teams and confident in influencing and negotiation, will help in finding solutions that work for everyone. Because priorities may change depending on business needs, you’ll need to be adaptable and able to manage your own time. And your ability to think critically and solve problems creatively means you’ll be able to find holistic solutions to uniquely challenging requirements.
Training
and…
Title: Associate Solutions Architect
Company: Women in Data®
Location: Cheltenham, UK
Category:
