Job Description
Senior Developer
Location: National*
Closing Date: 15th March 2026
Interviews: w/c 30th March 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 £10,532)
National: £58,511 - £65,329 (which may include an allowance up to £10,639)
Working pattern: full-time, part-time, flexible working
Contract Type: Perm
Vacancy number: 15350
*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
The Role
We’re recruiting for a Senior Developers here at Justice Digital, to be part of our warm and collaborative Central Digital team.
This role aligns against Software Developer 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 Software Developer, you'll play a pivotal role in enhancing access to justice and improving outcomes for offenders through innovative digital solutions.
To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025
Key Responsibilities
As a Senior Software Developer at the MoJ you will have technical and people responsibilities.
Technical:
Securely designing, building and maintaining APIs, services and systems
Working on pre-existing codebases
Improving the resilience and stability of software
Applying practices to enable continuous delivery
People:
Developing and influencing people via line management duties, informal and formal coaching, and mentoring
Supporting lead developers in building high performing teams
Helping to build and maintain a diverse, inclusive culture across the development community, growing awareness, inclusivity, and balance
Collaboration:
You’ll collaborate closely with user researchers, product managers, designers, delivery managers, technical architects, and content specialists who share our vision of leveraging technology to transform government services.
Technologies:
We use a range of technologies and we’re looking for people who have experience of building web applications or back-end systems in an object-oriented language, and love learning new languages and frameworks.
Application Code: Ruby
CI/CD: Circle CI, GitHub Actions
Monitoring: Sentry
Containerization: Kubernetes, Docker
Cloud Infrastructure: AWS
Web Interfaces: GOV.UK and MoJ Design Systems
Front-End Development:
We value a deep understanding of web technologies, emphasizing semantic HTML, performant CSS, and JavaScript or TypeScript. Accessibility is a core consideration across all our services.
We’re happy to help you learn our tech stack once you’re part of our team, and do not require an exact match in your experience of languages. Check out GitHub for a closer look at the technologies we use, and a complete list of services that we build and maintain. We subscribe to the manifesto for agile software development.
Our community:
We currently have over 200 experienced developers who make up the engineering community across the MoJ. You will coach and mentor junior colleagues and take part in informal support networks with your peers. You will be encouraged to play an active role in the engineering community and culture.
We take the responsibility of supportive and effective line management very seriously. We will value the skills you bring to the civil service and help you to build on them. When the time is right, we will support moving between teams or government departments to learn different technologies, or take on more responsibility, according to your career goals.
Take a look at our developer blog and Justice Digital blog to get a sense of our work and culture.
Career Development:
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.
If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!
Benefits
37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours.
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.
Staff have 10% time to dedicate to develop & grow.
Generous civil service pension based on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 28.97% from April 1st 2024 (Contribution Rates).
25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and 1 privilege day usually taken around the King’s birthday. 5 additional days of leave once you have reached 5 years of service.
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!
Wellbeing support including access to the Calm app.
Nurturing professional and interpersonal networks including those for Carers & Childcare, Gender Equality, PROUD and SPIRIT.
Bike loans up to £2500 and secure bike parking (subject to availability and location).
Season ticket loans, childcare vouchers and eye-care vouchers.
5 days volunteering paid leave.
Some offices may have a subsidised onsite Gym.
Person Specification
Essential
Proven experience of delivering large and complex software solutions
Demonstrate proven experience of working in a modern object-oriented language and be confident learning new languages
Apply modern development and deployment techniques to your work, including continuous integration and continuous delivery
Champion software maintenance, clean code, coding standards and practices that make change and consistency easier
Write automated tests to continuously validate your work
Thrive when you work as part of a team that abides by the spirit of the manifesto of agile software development
Enjoy sharing knowledge and working in a multi-disciplinary team
Solve problems in a systematic way
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.
How to Apply
Candidates must submit a CV and a supporting statement with a maximum of 750 words, which describes how your skills and experience, meet the requirements set out in the below criteria:
Proven experience of delivering large and complex software solutions (250 words)
Apply modern development and deployment techniques to your work, including continuous integration and continuous delivery (250 words)
Champion software maintenance, clean code, coding standards and practices that make change and consistency easier (250 words)
Application Guidance
Please access the following link for guidance on how to apply and how to complete a Personal Statement
In Justice Digital, we recruit using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks. We will assess your Experience, Technical Skills and the following Behaviours during the assessment process:
Working Together
Changing & Improving
Developing Self and Others
Making Effective Decisions
A diverse panel will review your application against the Person Specification above.
Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a 1-hour panel interview held via video conference which will include a technical task.
Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on ‘Proven experience of delivering large and complex software solutions’ will be conducted before the sift.
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
