Location
Core HQs and Scientific Campuses including London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Porton and Chilton. Hybrid working model with a minimum of 60% of contractual hours spent on-site.

Hours
Full Time - standard Civil Service working hours with flexible working options available.

Salary
Grade 6: £70,797 - £81,450 (National), £72,950 - £83,443 (Outer London), £75,104 - £85,436 (Inner London). This role attracts a Market Pay Supplement of up to £10,000 per annum, pro rata, reviewed annually.

About the Role
The Principal DevOps Engineer will provide strategic leadership for UKHSA's platform engineering services and DevOps capabilities, ensuring alignment with the organisation’s digital, data and technology objectives. Reporting to the Head of HPC, you will be responsible for the strategic direction, governance and continual evolution of enterprise cloud platforms, automation, CI/CD pipelines and software delivery capabilities. You will lead the development of resilient, secure and scalable technology services that underpin critical organisational outcomes.

Working across organisational boundaries, you will shape long-term technology strategy, influence investment decisions, and manage significant technical risks associated with cloud platforms, automation and software delivery. You will provide authoritative technical leadership to senior executives, programme leaders and the wider engineering community, embedding security, resilience, service continuity and value for money in technology decisions and delivery.

You will lead the Cloud Platform Engineering function, establishing engineering standards, professional practices and technical roadmaps adopted across UKHSA. Developing organisational capability through leadership of multidisciplinary teams and managers, you will foster a high-performing engineering culture and build skills to meet future needs through workforce planning, mentoring, coaching and talent development.

Key responsibilities include leading the strategic evolution of cloud platform engineering and DevOps capabilities, providing technical governance across cloud architecture, Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, automation, observability, container platforms and resilience. You will collaborate with architects, cyber security, commercial and procurement teams to advise on cloud strategy, engineering risk and technology investment.

As UKHSA Professional Lead for DevOps Engineering, you will develop standards and capability pathways, coach senior engineers, lead adoption of emerging technologies, resolve complex platform issues, and represent UKHSA in cross-government engineering communities and strategic supplier engagements.

UKHSA is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion, fostering an inclusive culture where differences drive innovative solutions to meet workforce and community needs.

Experience
- Expert knowledge of cloud platform engineering, DevOps and modern software delivery practices.
- Extensive practical experience with enterprise cloud platforms (AWS and Azure), container platforms (Kubernetes), Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD and automation.
- Proven ability to provide technical leadership across complex cloud-hosted services.
- Strong understanding of cloud architecture, information security, systems integration, observability and engineering governance including Secure by Design principles.
- Experience designing, assuring and governing secure, resilient and scalable cloud platforms and establishing enterprise engineering standards.
- Strong systems design and software engineering expertise with experience reviewing complex technical designs and optimising engineering processes.
- Proven leadership of organisational technology strategy and engineering capability, including developing roadmaps, influencing investment decisions, and providing technical assurance.
- Extensive experience in leading and developing technical capability, including line management, coaching, mentoring, recruitment and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
- Experience owning or leading a professional capability or engineering discipline is highly desirable.
- Excellent communication, influencing and stakeholder management skills.
- Experience working in government, public health or regulated technical environments and familiarity with Government Digital Service standards is desirable.
- Experience delivering enterprise-scale cloud transformation, platform modernisation or migration programmes is desirable.
- Active engagement with wider DevOps or government digital engineering communities is desirable.

About You
Strategic and authoritative technical leader with the ability to influence senior stakeholders and lead multidisciplinary teams. You are committed to fostering an inclusive, high-performing engineering culture and continuously developing professional standards and capability. You thrive in complex environments and are passionate about delivering secure, resilient and cost-effective digital services that support critical public health outcomes.

Qualifications
Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology or related discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
Evidence of continuous professional development in cloud engineering, DevOps, platform engineering or related disciplines.