Lead DevOps Engineer

Graphicsunlimited; Leeds; Hybrid; GBP 78,000 - 93,000; Full time

Job summary

A major governmental engineering department seeks a Lead DevOps Engineer in Leeds to drive the technical landscape and lead multiple teams. The ideal candidate will have strong experience in Agile, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud platforms, specifically AWS. This role offers a competitive salary of £92,522 along with excellent benefits, including a substantial pension and generous leave. The position supports a hybrid working model, allowing flexibility in work-life balance.

Benefits

28.97% employer pension contributions

Flexible working hours

26-31 days holidays

Interest-free loans for transportation

Professional development opportunities

Qualifications

• Experience leading engineers in agile teams.
• Significant experience with CI/CD pipelines like GitLab CI or Jenkins.
• Expertise in cloud platforms, especially AWS.
• Knowledge of multiple scripting and programming languages.

Responsibilities

• Lead DevOps Engineers in setting strategy and building applications.
• Collaborate with researchers, testers, and designers.
• Support the Engineering community of practice.

Skills

Leadership in multi-disciplinary teams

Version control systems

CI/CD pipelines

Infrastructure-as-code

Containerization

Scripting languages (Bash, Python)

Cloud platform lifecycle management

Job description

Pay and Perks

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 leadership 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.

We're looking for someone who has the vision to lead multiple teams through the adoption of cutting‑edge infrastructure and development technologies.

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?

• Experience of leading and supporting Engineers in multi‑disciplinary teams in an agile environment and sharing knowledge and good practice with the wider organisation.
• Significant experience of version control systems as well as building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines e.g. git with GitLab CI or Jenkins.
• Significant experience of Infrastructure‑as‑code and configuration of code for one or more cloud providers.
• Experience of containerisation and container orchestration.
• Experience of multiple scripting and/or programming languages (e.g. Bash, Python).
• Significant experience of the full life cycle of a cloud‑based platforms and applications from designing, through deployment to supporting and patching in particular AWS.

You and your role

Our Lead DevOps Engineers lead and set the strategy as well as build our products and applications with researchers, testers, architects, analysts and designers as part of multi‑functional agile delivery teams.

You’ll also be part of a supportive Engineering community of practice, with hundreds of engineering experts from across the UK, united by passion and purpose. We’ll give you the tools and time to build your capability, with coaching, mentoring, qualifications and formal learning, meet‑ups or whatever else works for you.

Details. Wages. Perks.

Location: You’ll join us in one of our brilliant digital hubs in Leeds, Manchester or Newcastle, 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.

Benefits

• 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

Process

We know your time is valuable, so our application and selection process are just two stages:

• Apply: complete your application on Civil Service Jobs. There’ll be full instructions when you click through.
• Interview: a single stage interview online.