Digital and technology jobs in government (DDaT)

The digital, data and technology (DDaT) profession is the Civil Service’s grouping for technical and digital staff: software developers, user researchers, product and delivery managers, designers, data engineers, architects, security specialists and IT operations staff. Jobs are advertised by individual departments on Civil Service Jobs and assessed partly against the DDaT capability framework, which defines each role and the skills expected at each level. Pay starts from the department’s normal grade range, and many departments add a DDaT pay allowance for specialist roles to compete with private sector salaries.

The role families

The capability framework groups DDaT jobs into families. The ones you will see advertised most often are:

• software development, including frontend, backend and full-stack developers
• user-centred design, covering user researchers, interaction designers, service designers and content designers
• product and delivery, covering product managers, delivery managers and business analysts
• data, covering data engineers, data scientists and data architects
• architecture, including technical and enterprise architects
• IT operations and infrastructure, including service desk, network and cloud engineers
• cyber security, from security analysts to security architects
• quality assurance and testing

Each role has levels, roughly from associate or junior up to head of profession, and the framework says what someone at each level is expected to do. Adverts usually name both the Civil Service grade and the DDaT role level, and the two do not always line up the same way in every department. Reading the framework entry for your role before applying tells you which skills the panel will assess.

Where the jobs are

The Government Digital Service (GDS), now part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, builds shared platforms such as GOV.UK and sets standards for digital services. Most digital jobs, though, are in departments and agencies running their own services. HMRC, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the DVLA all have large digital teams, often based in regional hubs such as Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol and Swansea as well as London. Working for the DVLA in Swansea covers one example.

Data roles sit close to the analytical professions. If your background is statistics, economics or research methods, analyst jobs in government may fit better.

Pay and allowances

Civil Service pay is set by department and grade, and there is no single national DDaT salary. The DDaT pay framework lets departments pay an allowance on top of base pay for roles that are hard to recruit to. The allowance depends on the role, the level and the department, can be reviewed, and is usually not pensionable in the same way as base pay. Adverts normally show base pay and the allowance separately, sometimes with a total. Read both lines before comparing offers.

The current allowance values are not in the sources we have checked, so we have not printed them. For 2026/27 the Civil Service pay remit guidance set a maximum headline increase of 3.5% across each department’s paybill. Departments can also put forward pay flexibility business cases, due by 31 October 2026, for groups where recruitment and retention are a problem. Neither confirms an individual pay rise. Civil Service grades and pay explains how grade ranges work.

DDaT staff join the Civil Service pension scheme, alpha. Member contributions in 2026/27 are 4.6% on pay up to £36,199, 5.45% from £36,200 to £56,000, 7.35% from £56,001 to £150,000 and 8.05% above that. Whether an allowance counts towards pensionable pay is in the offer letter.

How applications are assessed

DDaT recruitment uses Civil Service Success Profiles with a strong emphasis on the Technical element. Typical stages are an application with a CV and statement or answers against the advertised skills, followed by an interview that mixes technical and behaviour questions. Many teams add a practical element: a code review or pairing exercise for developers, a portfolio walkthrough for designers, a case study for product managers. Civil Service Success Profiles explained covers the behaviour side.

A few practical points help at this stage. Write your answers against the specific skills listed in the advert, using the framework’s wording where it fits, since panels score against those skills one by one. If a portfolio or code sample is requested, choose work you can explain in detail, including what you would change. And if the advert names a role level, read what the framework expects at the level below and above, so you can pitch your examples at the right point.

Security clearance is common. Most posts need at least baseline checks, and roles with access to sensitive systems need security check (SC) clearance or above, which may require a period of UK residence. Some posts are reserved for UK nationals.

Outside the Civil Service

The DDaT framework is used across central government. The NHS, councils and police forces run their own digital teams on different pay structures; the NHS uses Agenda for Change bands, covered in IT and digital jobs in the NHS. The devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland employ digital staff through their own recruitment, though many use the same role definitions.