Job Description
Senior DevOps Engineer
Location: National*
Closing Date: 24th May 2026
Interviews: W/C 8th June 2026
Grade: 7
(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)
Salary**:
London: £63,343 - £70,725 which may include an allowance up to £14,882
National: £58,511 - £65,329 which may include an allowance up to £14,939
Working pattern: Full-time, Part-time, Flexible working
Contract Type: Permanent
Number of vacancies: 4
Vacancy number: 17548
*We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your local office. Office locations can be found ON THIS MAP
Please note that unless you are an existing member of staff at Justice Digital, Data and Science, the only London location being recruited to is 10 South Colonnade, E14 4PU. We are no longer recruiting to 102 Petty France, SW1H 9AJ.
The Role
Please note this role requires you to pass Security Check clearance. Please click on the link for details.
We’re recruiting for Senior DevOps Engineers here at Justice Digital, Data and Science to be part of our warm and collaborative OPG Digital & LAA Digital teams.
This role aligns against Senior DevOps Engineer from the Government Digital and Data Framework.
At Justice Digital, we're dedicated to leveraging technology to drive impactful change across the justice system. As a Senior DevOps Engineer, you'll play a pivotal role in enhancing access to justice and improving outcomes for offenders through innovative digital solutions.
You’ll be working on our acclaimed open-source public services, with user needs at the heart of everything, helping us transform Government for the future. Working as part of a multi-disciplinary team, you’ll be helping define how we do what we do and making sure that our systems are built to be changed rapidly.
You’ll collaborate closely with software developers, product managers, designers, delivery managers, technical architects and content specialists who share our vision of leveraging technology to transform government services.
Our Tech Stack
We use a diverse range of technologies, and we’re seeking individuals who specialise in one or more and are eager to learn new languages and frameworks.
Our tech stack includes:
Cloud infrastructure: AWS
Infrastructure-as-code: Terraform
Containerisation: Docker
CI/CD deployments: GitHub Actions
Application code: Go, PHP, Python, Ruby
Once part of our team, we'll support you in mastering our tech stack, regardless of your current experience. Explore our GitHub for insights into our technologies and the services we develop and maintain.
Join over 150 experienced software and devops engineers who form our vibrant engineering community across the MoJ. You’ll have opportunities to mentor junior colleagues and participate in informal support networks with peers. We encourage active engagement in shaping our engineering culture and community.
We take pride in our supportive and effective line management. Your skills are highly valued, and we’re committed to helping you expand them within the civil service. You'll have opportunities to move between teams or departments, explore new technologies, and take on increased responsibilities aligned with your career goals.
Dive deeper into our work and culture by visiting our Developer Blog
You’ll receive a range of excellent benefits when you join our department, including:
A generous employer pension contribution of 28.97% through the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
25 days of annual leave, (increasing to 30 days once you have reached 5 years of service), plus 8 bank holidays and a privilege day for the King’s birthday.
Flexible working arrangements including hybrid working, working part time or compressed hours. Designed to support a positive work–life balance.
Employees are allocated 10% of their working time for personal and professional development.
A £1k per person learning budget is in place to support all our people, with access to best-in-class conferences and seminars, accreditation with professional bodies, fully funded vocational programmes and e-learning platforms.
Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!
You can find more details of the Benefits we offer here. To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital, Data and Science please take a look at our blog.
Key Responsibilities:
As a Senior DevOps engineer, you will:
Technical
Help build and run user-centred, open-source, secure web systems to serve a variety of citizen and government needs
Be responsible for automating the deployment of systems that follow standard patterns, or components of systems that are more complex
Manage infrastructure for multiple environments through code
Build tools to automate infrastructure management tasks
People
Share knowledge of tools and techniques with the wider team and community, both developers and non-developers, and maintain DevOps culture.
Help build and maintain a diverse, inclusive culture across the development community, growing awareness, inclusivity, and balance
Help with hiring, taking part in recruitment of other web operations engineers and technical staff
Participate in the professional development of themselves and support the growth of others
Participate in 2nd line support during office hours, and sometimes out of hours (for which you’ll be paid an allowance and further hourly payment when on-call)
If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!
Person Specification
Essential
Hands-on experience designing, building and operating CI/CD pipelines and delivery automation.
Experience operating production systems on a major public cloud provider (e.g. AWS, Azure or GCP).
Experience managing environments using infrastructure-as-code (or equivalent configuration-as-code) approaches.
Experience using a programming or scripting language such as Go, PHP, Java, Python or JavaScript
Experience of modern development and delivery practices
Experience with data and application security tooling and methodologies (such as STRIDE)
Experience with using containers and minimal operating systems
Experience working openly across disciplines and communicating clearly with technical and non-technical colleagues.
Experience supporting continuous learning through knowledge-sharing, constructive feedback and inclusive ways of working.
A systematic, evidence-led approach to diagnosing and resolving technical problems, weighing options and trade-offs, and iterating improvements based on signals such as logs, metrics, user feedback and incident learnings.
Willingness to be assessed against the requirements for SC clearance.
We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate based on culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor.
Our values are Purpose, Humanity Openness and Together. Find out more here about how we celebrate diversity and an inclusive culture in our workplace.
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.
Salary Information**
Base salary for this role is London: £63,343 - £70,725 and National: £58,511 - £65,329
New entrants to the Civil Service joining the MoJ are expected to start at the minimum of the pay band.
Existing Civil Servants moving on a level transfer will retain their current base salary or move to the minimum of the pay band for the role, whichever is higher.
Existing Civil Servants who are promoted will either move to the bottom of the new grade’s pay band or receive a 10% uplift, whichever provides the greater increase.
Candidates may also be eligible for a non‑pensionable Government Digital & Data Allowance of up to £14,882 per year (London) or £14,939 (National). This is a temporary allowance, reviewed annually and may be retained, amended, or withdrawn.
The final offer will reflect the skills and experience you demonstrate during the assessment process.
How to Apply
In Justice Digital, Data and Science, we recruit using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks. We shall assess a combination of your Experience, Technical skills and Behaviours during the assessment process.
Stage 1 - Application and sift:
To apply for this position, you must submit the following as part of your application:
A CV detailing your career history (including any relevant qualifications). Your CV will be assessed against the essential criteria outlined within the Person Specification of this advert.
A Personal Statement (no more than 750 words) which should outline your experience and skills, giving clear examples of work undertaken. It should specifically address the following 4 criteria listed below:
Hands-on experience designing, building and operating CI/CD pipelines and delivery automation.
Experience operating production systems on a major public cloud provider (e.g. AWS, Azure or GCP).
Experience managing environments using infrastructure-as-code (or equivalent configuration-as-code) approaches.
Experience using a programming or scripting language such as Go, PHP, Python or JavaScript
A diverse sift panel will review the information in your CV and Personal Statement to assess the sift criteria specified above. We operate an anonymous shortlisting process. Please ensure your CV and Personal Statement do not include your name or any other identifying details.
Please access the following link for guidance on how to apply - Application Guidance
Stage 2 - Interviews:
Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to the 1st-stage, virtual interview, (30 minutes max.) which will include a short whiteboarding technical exercise, which will be completed and presented during the interview.
Successful candidates who pass the first interview will be invited to the final, 2nd-stage interview, a 1.5-hour panel interview held via Microsoft Teams. At this interview stage, you will be assessed against the following Success Profile elements - Experience, Technical and the following Behaviours:
Communicating and influencing
Developing self and others
Making effective decisions
Delivering at pace
As part of your interview, you will be asked to deliver a presentation that assesses your technical capability. Further details will be provided if successful at sift.
Appointments are made strictly in merit order. In the event that two or more candidates receive identical interview scores, the Communicating and influencing behaviour will be applied as the primary lead criterion to determine the final merit order.
Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for but demonstrate the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and offer you the position without needing a further application.
A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, from which further appointments may be made.
Use of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Terms & Conditions
Please review our Terms and Conditions which set out how we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact digitalanddatarecruitment@justice.gov.uk
