Details
Reference number
429995
Salary
£67,126 - £91,453
Up to £91,453 (National) - Based on capability. The base salary of this grade is £67,126 for other locations. Offers made above this will be made up with a specialist pay allowance.
GBP
Job grade
Grade 6
Contract type
Permanent
Business area
GDS - Products & Services
Type of role
Digital
Working pattern
Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time, Compressed hours
Number of jobs available
1
Contents
* Location
* About the job
* Benefits
* Things you need to know
* Apply and further information
Location
Manchester
About the job
Job summary
The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.
Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:
* joining up public sector services
* harnessing the power of AI for the public good
* strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
* elevating leadership and investing in talent
* funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
* committing to transparency and driving accountability
We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK's geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.
We're part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.
The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you'll be working with some of the world's most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.
The Product & Services Directorate (P&S) within GDS is responsible for the GOV.UK Ai enabled app, as well as common component products that provide shared systems, technology and processes, making it quicker and cheaper to build great public services that are consistent for users:
* GOV.UK AI-enabled App: building a personalised and proactive relationship with users, making it easier to interact with government
* GOV.UK AI: maximising opportunities of current technological advances to develop citizen facing AI experiences
* GOV.UK Pay, GOV.UK Notify, GOV.UK Forms and Emergency Alerts: building services once, to be used across government, local authorities and police forces
Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation's highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need
Job description
As Head of Engineering for the GOV.UK AI Enabled App, you play a crucial role in ensuring the strategic delivery of the GOV.UK Ai enabled app with the aim to transform the way citizens interact and communicate with government. We seek a passionate and experienced technical leader, with significant experiences of owning and operating complex mobile applications at national/global scale and who thrives in fast-paced environments.
You'll thrive using agile methods and enjoy working collaboratively with multi-disciplinary teams. Above all, you'll want to make government better, which may sometimes involve challenging the status quo.
As Head of Engineering for the Ai enabled GOV.UK App you will:
* lead by example, be a visible leader who takes responsibility and acts as a role model
* develop the future technical strategy as part of the multidisciplinary senior management team, leading on engineering
* ensure engineering standards and guidelines are clearly established and communicated, making sure these are fit for purpose, and aligned with existing and emerging GDS principles and standards
* help define and lead the implementation of GDS principles and standards - working with colleagues right across GDS to do so
* be accountable for the engineering quality, security, availability, and resilience of the services within the GOV.UK app
* drive delivery process optimisations - identify and help teams remove toil and drag factors (e.g. slow CI, manual processes, etc)
* work with other discipline heads to ensure that all technology and products are built in line with user needs, and have an effective ownership and operational model for their ongoing support
* review team roadmaps and helping contribute from an engineering perspective; ensure technical debt and service quality considerations are considered
* ensure teams have the right mix of technical capabilities in place to achieve their roadmapped goals and desired service levels
* act as a digital ambassador across government, supporting recruitment, identifying good practices for GDS to adopt and sharing experiences, e.g. through blog posts, tech talks at conferences etc
* work with cyber security and other security colleagues to deliver secure and operational services
* lead and support wellbeing of the development community, taking responsibility for developing others, through line management and/or mentoring
* plan and manage engineering staffing within the personalisation programme of work, recruiting civil servants, interim/contractor technologists and managed services, while identifying good engineering practices to adopt and sharing experiences, e.g. through blog posts, tech talks at conferences etc
* be involved in helping recruit technologists, where appropriate, helping sift and interview
Person specification
We're interested in people who have:
* a passion for technology and its delivery in building a user-centric service in an ever changing space, ensuring the right technology solutions meet outcomes for our users
* an understanding of how to influence, manage and challenge complex stakeholder relationships and communicate with both technical and non-technical audiences
* can set technical strategy and manage resource allocation for software development programmes. You can liaise with stakeholders to establish business requirements and able to identify, propose, initiate and lead on the identified work
* experience of developing and managing high performing, agile, technical teams and creating an inclusive, collaborative culture across boundaries and locations
* practical and deep knowledge of mobile technology and the unique opportunities and capabilities offered by mobile devices
* a deep understanding of modern technology practices such as continuous integration delivery, and test driven development
* cloud native experience working with IaaS, SaaS and serverless workloads and managed/SaaS services, infrastructure-as-code and a strategic approach to technical decision making when scaling services
* a good knowledge of cloud security architecture, including threat modelling, analysis and operations
* are experienced in line management, helping colleagues with their career development
* have experience building robust and accessible mobile applications and systems at significant scale that work for as many users as possible, regardless of their needs
Benefits
There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:
* flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
* a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%
* 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
* an extra day off for the King's birthday
* an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
* career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
* paid volunteering leave
* a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
* job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
* advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
* death in service benefits
* cycle to work scheme and facilities
* access to an employee discounts scheme
* 10 learning days per year
* volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
* access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning
Any move to Government Digital Service from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at
Office attendance
The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.
DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).
Things you need to know
Selection process details
The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:
* CV and two application questions. As part of your application, you'll be asked to submit an anonymised CV demonstrating your previous work history. It is essential that your CV meets the skills and experience listed in the "Who you are" person specification above. Please note that, for this role, we cannot consider applicants who cannot demonstrate this criteria.
* You will also need to answer two application questions based on the person specifications.
* Failure to submit your CV and complete the application questions will result in your application being unsuccessful.
* An interview - we will assess you against the behaviour and competency listed above and your experience. The interview will include the following elements:
*
o A walk through of a complex product you have delivered - 15 mins
o A 60 minute interview. You will receive interview questions ahead of time.
Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.
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.
In the event we receive a high volume of applications, we will conduct the initial sift against the lead criteria which is:
* a passion for technology and its delivery in building a user-centric service in an ever changing space, ensuring the right technology solutions meet outcomes for our us
In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We'll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.
For this role we'll consider the following Civil Service Behaviours that are most relevant to this role:
* working together
* changing and improving
* making effective decisions
* leadership
* developing self and others
We will also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Lead Developer - Management role:
* Availability and capacity management
* Development process optimisation
* Information security
* Modern standards approach
* Programming and build
* Prototyping
* Service support
* Systems design
* Systems integration
* User focus
Recruitment Timeline
Sift completion: 3rd October 2025
Panel interviews: W/C 13th October 2025
Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.
A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.
Please note that this role requires SC clearance, which would normally need 5 years' UK residency in the past 5 years. This is not an absolute requirement, but supplementary checks may be needed where individuals have not lived in the UK for that period. This may mean your security clearance (and therefore your appointment) will take longer or, in some cases, not be possible.
For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers.
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.
Sponsorship
DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check .
See our vetting charter .
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Nationality requirements
This job is broadly open to the following groups:
* UK nationals
* nationals of the Republic of Ireland
* nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
* nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
* nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
* individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
* Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles .
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
Diversity and Inclusion
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 Diversity and Inclusion Strategy .
Apply and further information
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative.
The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
* Name :
* Email :
Recruitment team
* Email :
Further information
If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact GDS- in the first instance.
If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you can contact the Civil Service Commission by email: Or in writing: Civil Service Commission, Room G/8 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ.