Lead DevOps Engineer

Lead DevOps Engineer Pay up to £92,522 plus
28.97% employer pension contributions, hybrid working, flexible hours, and great work life balance.

This is a real and significant DevOps role in the UK's largest government department.

Here you will have the freedom and autonomy to drive the development of our technical landscape and define what DevOps looks like in DWP DWP. Digital with Purpose.

You'll be a leading, expert voice in a DWP Digital community that is driving a once-in-a-generation transformation of public services.

We have a unique purpose, putting better, more efficient services in the hands of DWP users.

The scale of our engineering challenge is also huge: We have 1bn lines of code in over 12,000 code repos and 90+ programming languages.

We run around 294 days' worth of testing every day through automation.

Our APIs receive 173 million requests, and we spin up 280,000 AWS servers every month.

Over 22 million people - 1/3 of the UK's adult population access our services daily.

Over 100,000 colleagues and agents use the kit, tools and systems we roll out.

We build and maintain systems behind payments worth over £195bn payments annually.

What skills, knowledge and experience will you need?

CI/CD and Infrastructure as Code

• Advanced, demonstrable capability in pipeline engineering and Infrastructure as Code, with hands‑on experience designing, implementing and optimising CI/CD pipelines (for example Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions or GitLab CI) and defining reusable, governed infrastructure using Terraform and Azure‑native tooling (ARM or Bicep), setting the engineering standards that others follow.

Containerisation and orchestration

• Extensive experience building and operating scalable, resilient container platforms using Docker and Kubernetes, preferably Azure Kubernetes Service, from design through to production support.

Security and DevSecOps

• Strong, practical application of secure‑by‑design and Zero Trust principles, including managed identities, secrets management (for example Key Vault), RBAC and vulnerability management, embedding security throughout the delivery lifecycle.

Automation and reliability engineering

• Proficient in Python with solid scripting in PowerShell and Bash to drive automation and operational efficiency, combined with strong observability practice (for example Azure Monitor, Sentinel, Application Insights and Log Analytics) using SLIs, SLOs and distributed tracing to sustain and improve system reliability.

Autonomy and technical leadership

• Proven ability to work independently and self‑manage priorities with minimal direction, taking end‑to‑end ownership of complex services.

Sets technical direction and standards, drives the adoption of modern engineering practices, and influences and guides engineers and stakeholders to deliver measurable outcomes such as fewer incidents, faster and safer releases, and improved resilience.

Azure platform expertise and architecture

• Deep hands‑on expertise across the Microsoft Azure ecosystem, including core compute, networking, storage, identity and security services.

Proven track record of independently designing, delivering and owning secure, scalable and highly available cloud environments at enterprise scale, with clear regard for availability, cost optimisation and compliance.

You and your role You'll lead the adoption of modern DevOps practices, build secure and scalable cloud solutions, and help teams deliver faster through automation, Infrastructure as Code and CI/CD. This is a hands‑on leadership role where you'll influence key technical decisions, champion DevSecOps, resilience and observability, and work closely with engineering teams to create high‑quality services that make a real impact.

You'll use technologies including Azure, Azure DevOps and Terraform while mentoring engineers and helping to raise standards across the organisation.

Details.

Wages.

Location: You'll join us in one of our brilliant digital hubs in Blackpool or Manchester, whichever is most convenient for you.

Hybrid Working: We work a hybrid model

• you'll spend some time working at home and some time collaborating face to face in a hub.

Pay: We offer competitive pay of up to £92,522. Pension: You'll get a brilliant civil service pension with employer contributions worth
28.97%, worth over £21,000 per year.

Holidays: A generous leave package starting at 26 days rising to 31 days over time.

You can also take up to 3 extra days off a month on flexi‑time.

You'll also get all the usual public holidays.

We have a broad benefits package built around your work‑life balance which includes: Flexible working including flexible hours and flex-friendly policies Time off volunteering and charitable giving Bring your authentic self to work with 'I Can Be Me in DWP' Discounts and savings on shopping, fun days out and more Interest‑free loans to buy a bike or a season ticket, so it's even easier for you to get to work and start making a difference Professional development, coaching, mentoring and career progression opportunities.

And we have an award‑winning environment and culture: DWP have been recognised as 2024 Diversity Employer of the Year at the Computing Women in Tech Excellence awards Diverse and Inclusive Leadership at Digital Leaders Awards 2024 Commended as Best Place to Work in Digital category in the Computing Digital Technology Leaders awards 2025 Recognised as one of the Best Public Sector Employers at 2025 Women In Tech Employer Awards