Location
City of Westminster with hybrid working options across UKHSA Core HQs and Scientific Campuses including Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Porton, Chilton and Colindale. Hybrid workers are expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their contractual hours on-site.

Hours
Full Time, standard Civil Service working hours with flexible working arrangements where business needs allow.

Salary
£56,185 - £70,566 per annum depending on location and experience. This role attracts a Market Pay Supplement of up to £10,000 per annum based on capability level, reviewed annually.

About the Role
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) Development and Operations team is driving the digital transformation to become a data-driven, customer-focused organisation delivering services aligned with the Government Digital Service (GDS) Digital by Default Service Standard.

As a Lead DevOps Engineer, you will lead a small team, acting as technical product owner and shaping medium to long term strategies for DevOps toolchains, CI/CD pipelines, and platforms. You will provide expert technical leadership, coaching and mentoring, and promote best practices across teams.

Your role involves designing secure, scalable, and cost-effective cloud services primarily on AWS and Azure, implementing infrastructure automation using tools such as Ansible and Terraform, and ensuring continuous integration and delivery through platforms like GitLab CI and GitHub Actions.

You will establish and maintain systems integration standards, lead complex service fault resolution, champion user-centred design, and contribute to UKHSA’s DevOps strategic direction. This role requires collaboration with developers, data scientists, public health officials, and other stakeholders to deliver reliable software solutions supporting critical public health services.

UKHSA is investing in a new National Biosecurity Centre in Harlow, Essex, with phased relocation planned from current sites over the next decade. You will be supported throughout this transition.

Experience
- Expert knowledge of modern development standards, systems integration, and service support across complex programmes.
- Proven experience acting as technical product owner, contributing to medium and long-term technical strategies.
- Practitioner-level skills in information security, systems design, and programming, including designing secure solutions and coding medium-to-high complexity programs or scripts.
- Experience with cloud automation technologies such as Ansible and Terraform.
- Experience implementing CI/CD platforms like GitLab CI and GitHub Actions using repeatable deployment patterns.
- Excellent communication skills, able to clearly represent complex engineering decisions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Degree in computer science or equivalent with a strong passion for DevOps, cloud automation, and version control (Git).

About you
- A recognised technical leader with the ability to coach, mentor, and guide teams.
- Strong advocate for user-centred design, working closely with user researchers and championing user needs.
- Ability to drive continuous improvement and process optimisation.
- Comfortable working in a collaborative, fast-paced environment supporting critical public health services.
- Commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace.

Qualifications
- Degree in computer science or a related discipline, or equivalent experience.
- Security clearance at Security Check level or ability to obtain this.
- Desirable: Experience with containerisation technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes platforms like Red Hat OpenShift.
- Desirable: Familiarity with RESTful Web Services, GDS Service Standard, and Technology Code of Practice.
- Desirable: Experience working in government, public health, or regulated environments.