Chief Technology Officer- CDDO

A part of the Cabinet Office, the Central Digital and Data Office leads the digital, data and technology (DDaT) function for government. We put the right conditions in place to achieve digital, data and technology transformation at scale by working with departments, and other government functions like commercial, project delivery and security professionals.

Reporting to the Executive Director of the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is responsible for providing overall function leadership of the technology, security and standards strategy for HM Government within the Cabinet Office.

The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) will also play a critical role in driving the join up with Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) professionals in other government departments in helping ministers achieve their ambition of making the UK the world’s leading digital government. You will be a strong and credible function leader for engineering, technology and architecture professionals across government.

• Defining and implementing a government wide technology strategy for the DDaT profession focused on Engineering, Technology & Architecture
• Advising departments on their solution architectures and aligning them to the DDaT Enterprise Architecture, ensure that all emergent and intentional solution design is fit for purpose across the whole lifecycle
• Building and managing Engineering, Technology & Architectural governance as part of a DDaT Technical Design Authority, establishing the architecture and design processes and methods, establishment of the governance regime & assurance of ongoing architecture and design activities across government
• Function leadership of Engineering & Architecture staff, ensuring that all Technology team members have defined career and skills development pathways in place in line with the DDaT pay and capability framework
• Ensuring government information is safe & secure – i.e. 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
• Leading the DDaT approach to management and decommissioning of legacy systems in departments
• Establishing DDaT’s overall engineering approach and improving our efficiency - across development and platform, covering processes, tools, controls and policies and engineering maturity for the DDaT community
• Managing technical risk across government – identification and management of key areas of technical risk, from technical debt through to product supportability, scalability etc.

Person Specification

• Proven leader of an expert function with excellent influencing senior leadership skills, strong decision making, negotiating and conflict resolution skills, effective relationship building skills, particularly with other CTOs, and the ability to coordinate several activities and priorities simultaneously whilst bringing others along with you
• Inspiring and coherent leadership style: ability to engage and win the cooperation and support of multiple internal and external parties, holding them to account through rigorous performance management to achieve common goals
• A proven track record in delivering large, high profile projects and programmes in an agile environment and managing associated budgets
• Able to demonstrate track record in researching new technology and designing innovative solutions
• Proven experience of senior stakeholder management in a political, pressured environment and evidence of building credible and respected relationships at board level
• Strong corporate and functional team leadership experience, managing multiple complex and highly specialist teams including cross functional and partner resources
• Sophisticated approach to commercial and supplier management within the context of technology change, able to establish and maximise effective working relationships with suppliers to stimulate innovation and guarantee successful delivery whilst delivering value for money from investment
• Experience in leading and driving continuous delivery as a software engineering approach
• Excellent written, verbal and representational skills, particularly in disseminating complex and technical issues to non-technical audiences

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

Job contact :

Name :
Daniel White, Roshit Raj or Rachel Ellis
Email :
CDDO-CTO@global-resourcing.com

Recruitment team :

Email :
CDDO-CTO@global-resourcing.com