Associate Solutions Architect

Salary: £53,496 to £61,686, comprising a basic salary of £50,838 and a concessionary payment of £2,658. 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.

Flexible working: We offer a range of working patterns, including full-time, part-time, and compressed hours, with flexible start and finish times to support a healthy work-life balance. While most of our work is carried out on-site due to its sensitive nature, occasional home working may be possible depending on business needs.

Find out more about flexible working on our website .

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, analy0se 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.

As an Associate Solutions Architect, you ll join a specialist team delivering technology solutions that underpin some of the UK s most critical national security work. Our work is unique and often cutting-edge, giving you the opportunity to develop deep expertise in an environment unlike any other.

Guided by a Senior Solutions Architect, you ll help shape designs, produce architectural artefacts, and support the teams that bring solutions to life. You ll focus on understanding business needs and translating them into solutions, balancing technical constraints, delivery plans, risks and complexity. You'll create designs, documentation and models that align with our architectural standards and strategic direction. As requirements evolve, with the support of your line manager, you'll help answer questions, clarify designs, and adapt solutions to keep projects on track. Occasional travel to sites across the UK will allow you to work closely with colleagues across the organisation.

You don't need a degree or specific qualifications to apply; we're interested in your experience and your motivation to support our mission. You'll need a foundational understanding of solution architecture and some experience contributing to the design and delivery of digital or technology solutions. Experience with at least one modern framework, such as TOGAF, NIST or ITIL, is valuable, typically gained through software engineering, infrastructure, or DevOps roles.

Effective communication skills and a broad technical foundation will help you explain design decisions to both technical and non-technical audiences, while confidence in influencing and negotiation will help you find solutions that work for everyone. You ll need to think critically and solve problems creatively, as the challenges you encounter here are genuinely unique and rewarding. Adaptability and effective time-management skills are also important, as priorities can shift depending on business needs.

When you join us, you ll have a full induction to GCHQ so you can understand who we are and what we do. Once in your role, you ll receive formal and on-the-job training, along with all the support you need to thrive. We re committed to continuous professional development and to providing the space for you to grow, innovate and experiment. Typically, around 20% of your time is dedicated to developing yourself and supporting others.

We know that development looks different for everyone, so we ll tailor our support to your learning style, whether that s through books, courses, conferences or stretch assignments. We ll cover the cost of professional qualifications and give you the time and support to achieve them. From day one, you ll have access to mentors and subject-matter experts, and we ll work with you to build a structured development plan aligned with your goals.

At GCHQ, diversity and inclusion are critical to our mission. To protect the UK, we need a truly diverse workforce that reflects the society we serve. This includes diversity in every sense of the word: those with different backgrounds, ages, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ways of thinking and those with disabilities or neurodivergent conditions. We therefore welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including those from groups that are under-represented in our workforce such as women, those from an ethnic minority background, people with disabilities and those from low socio-economic backgrounds. Find out more about our culture, working environment and diversity on our website .

To find out more and apply, please visit our website.

To be eligible to apply, you must be a British Citizen. If you hold dual nationality, of which one component is British, you will still be considered. Candidates must normally have been resident in the UK for seven out of the last ten years. This is particularly important if you were born outside the UK. We welcome applications from candidates of all ages, and there is no upper age limit. You can apply at 17; if successful, you will not be offered a start date prior to your 18th birthday. Full eligibility details can be found on our website.