These roles may be located in one of the following locations; Birmingham, Blackpool, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Sheffield. Please find further information on the Corporate hub locations here. Please note that for candidates requesting to work in Newcastle, this role will be based at Benton Park View from September 2025, and then at 1 Pilgrim Place in Newcastle city centre by the end of 2027. Job Summary This is a fantastic opportunity to join DWP and to be part of the one the biggest digital transformations in Europe, implementing leading edge technologies with the user at the centre of everything we do – we create innovative digital solutions that make a difference to the lives of our 22 million users. We are looking for Senior Site Reliability Engineers (SRE) to join one of our SRE teams at the heart of Digital Transformation. As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer, you will drive adoption of SRE best practice across our cloud estate. By utilising both your soft skills and technical experience, you will work with teams to ensure our standards and governance is met by onboarding our services into the cloud, through a dedicated assessment stage gate process. In turn, ensuring our citizen facing applications satisfy all the required operational and security needs for running in production. Please note this role requires you to pass Security Check clearance. For further information, please see 'Selection process details'. Job Description As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring the reliability and performance of our applications and infrastructure. The SRE team will put you in the position to work with application teams across the department on developing reliable and secure solutions to provide to citizens across the UK. You will lead by example, providing technical direction and supporting other SREs within your team. You will work with development teams from the design phase to help them use good practice and department standards when building their application infrastructure. Additionally, Responsibilities Of The Role Will Include: Design and develop the techniques for improving application reliability, run books, knowledge transfer across teams, and ongoing SRE strategy within your Functional and Professional Communities. Work collaboratively with development teams and provide guidance around best practice and ensure monitoring of applications is enabled. Push a mindset change within the organisation to foster engineering ownership, SRE best practice and the importance of the integrity and maintenance of the Live Service. Manage the error budget agreed with the product owner for the application and ensure that work is balanced in alignment with it. Act as the focal point for the investigation and resolution of major or complex incidents for the service, ensuring people with the right skills and expertise are proactively available to respond effectively. Assess the impact of change requests in consultation with stakeholders, providing technical expertise and authorising the implementation of subsequent changes. Coach and mentor application development and operations engineers in the practice and techniques of SRE. Conduct reviews for all high priority and major incidents ensuring they are done quickly and published. Routinely seek views and capture ideas from stakeholders and team members for improvements and encourage collaboration and innovation. Provide on-call support to help restore services, through dedicated run books or technical experience. Help to reduce toil and increase automation; by developing reliability to ensure we have a reduction of the time to live, and cost spend on repetitive tasks. As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring the reliability and performance of our applications and infrastructure. The SRE team will put you in the position to work with application teams across the department on developing reliable and secure solutions to provide to citizens across the UK. You will lead by example, providing technical direction and supporting other SREs within your team. You will work with development teams from the design phase to help them use good practice and department standards when building their application infrastructure. Additionally, Responsibilities Of The Role Will Include: Design and develop the techniques for improving application reliability, run books, knowledge transfer across teams, and ongoing SRE strategy within your Functional and Professional Communities. Work collaboratively with development teams and provide guidance around best practice and ensure monitoring of applications is enabled. Push a mindset change within the organisation to foster engineering ownership, SRE best practice and the importance of the integrity and maintenance of the Live Service. Manage the error budget agreed with the product owner for the application and ensure that work is balanced in alignment with it. Act as the focal point for the investigation and resolution of major or complex incidents for the service, ensuring people with the right skills and expertise are proactively available to respond effectively. Assess the impact of change requests in consultation with stakeholders, providing technical expertise and authorising the implementation of subsequent changes. Coach and mentor application development and operations engineers in the practice and techniques of SRE. Conduct reviews for all high priority and major incidents ensuring they are done quickly and published. Routinely seek views and capture ideas from stakeholders and team members for improvements and encourage collaboration and innovation. Provide on-call support to help restore services, through dedicated run books or technical experience. Help to reduce toil and increase automation; by developing reliability to ensure we have a reduction of the time to live, and cost spend on repetitive tasks. Person specification When Giving Details In Your Employment History And Personal Statement You Should Highlight Your Experience In Line With Essential Criteria Below: Lead Criterion: Automation Expertise: Proven experience in scripting to automate processes, eliminating manual tasks, and implementing infrastructure and configuration as code. CI/CD Pipeline Development: Demonstrated ability to build and enhance CI/CD pipelines for efficient and reliable software delivery. Development: Demonstrable experience of developing cloud based and supporting cloud-based applications in AWS & Azure. Incident Resolution: Strong experience in resolving complex technical incidents, ensuring minimal downtime and swift recovery. Reliability Engineering: Expertise in reliability engineering, including capacity and performance management through effective monitoring, logging, and alerting. Leadership: Demonstrated ability to engage with stakeholders at all levels, providing valuable feedback and support, while leading teams effectively, mentoring junior engineers, and driving improvements in working practices. If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact richard.hanley@dwp.gov.uk. Alongside your salary of £57,946, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £16,786 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides. We also have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes: Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours. Generous annual leave – at least 25 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (pro–rata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave. Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme. Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly). Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 year’s continuous service. Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes. An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Women’s Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more. Hybrid Working This role may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in their DWP office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your office will be your contractual place of work. If a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for the role and for you, you will normally be required to spend a minimum of 60% of your contracted working hours from your DWP office. If you have a disability, caring responsibilities, or other circumstances that may affect your ability to meet the minimum office attendance requirement, please discuss this with us using the contact details in this advert. Salary Information Pay for this role is from £57,946 to £78,517. The maximum salary for the grade is £68,205, however a Digital Allowance of up to £10,312 per annum is available for exceptional candidates. Digital Allowance is non-salary, and non-pensionable, and is classed as a temporary allowance. It is reviewed annually where it could be retained, amended, or removed. Our offer to successful candidates will be based on an assessment of your skills and experience as demonstrated at interview. Existing Civil Servants who secure a new role on lateral transfer will maintain their current salary. Selection process details Stage 1: Application Your Application Will Consist Of Three Parts: A Personal Details application form. Employment history - this should contain your work experience and any skills, qualifications and accomplishments relevant to the jobs you have completed based on the essential criteria. Personal statement - up to 1000 words. This statement should be used to provide examples of how you meet the essential criteria listed in the Person specification. Ensure that all examples provided in your statement are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. If you choose to use gen-AI to support your statement, you must follow the guidelines outlined in the Artificial intelligence and recruitment guide. The sift panel will use the information in your employment history and personal statement to assess your experience, skills and knowledge against the essential criteria. You will be provided with one combined overall assessment score for both your CV and Personal Statement. An initial sift will be conducted using the lead criterion stated above. Candidates who pass the initial sift will progress to a full sift. For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit Applying for jobs at DWP Digital. Applications will be sifted at regular intervals from the date the posts are advertised. Please apply as soon as you can, do not wait until the end of the campaign. Important Information You will be asked to complete your employment history. Any information that you would customarily share on a CV should therefore be entered onto the application form. Personal details that could be used to identify you including your name, contact details and address must be removed for your application to be considered. If your employment history/personal statement contains any personal details your application will be withdrawn. 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. A candidate’s guide to artificial intelligence (AI) in recruitment. Stage 2: Interview If you’re successful at sift stage you will be invited to a video interview via Microsoft Teams. There, you will be assessed against the experiences listed in the essential criteria. Interviews will take place from early December 2025. Sift and Interview dates to be confirmed. Further Information: Find out more about Working for DWP If high application volumes are received, the benchmark for candidates to proceed to the next stage may be raised. In line with our commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS), we aim to advance all candidates applying under the DCS who meet the minimum standard. However, we may only progress those candidates who best meet the required standards. A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. All successful candidates and those placed on reserve will be posted in merit list order by location. For these vacancies, we strongly recommend that applicants consult with an immigration specialist or qualified advisor to assess their eligibility for Visa Sponsorship before deciding to apply. Please note that while we consider sponsorship requests in accordance with current DWP guidance and Home Office policy, sponsorship cannot be guaranteed. Security Clearance Requirement You must meet the security requirements before you can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check. Applicants for this post must have lived in the UK for 5 years or more during their lifetime for DWP to accept National Security Vetting applications at the Security Check (SC) level. Requests to apply for SC will always be supported where people have lived in the UK for the last 5 years but will be subject to a pre-assessment if they have lived outside the UK during this period. For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website. Reasonable Adjustment At DWP we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce. We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia. If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: Contact Government Recruitment Service via DigitalRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs. Complete the “Reasonable Adjustments” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional. For further information on reasonable adjustments, terms and conditions and how we recruit visit the How we recruit page. The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Applications will be screened and if evidence of plagiarism or copying examples/answers from other sources is found, your application will be withdrawn. Internal DWP candidates may also face disciplinary action. 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 (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks. 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 (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). 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) (opens in a new window) 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 (opens in a new window) Working for the Civil Service The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) 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 (opens in a new window). 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. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy. The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) 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 (opens in a new window). 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. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy. 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 (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window). This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) 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 : Richard Hanley Email : richard.hanley@dwp.gov.uk Recruitment team Email : DigitalRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk Further information Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles. If you wish to make a complaint, please find further details here: https://careers.dwp.gov.uk/how-we-recruit/.