• Details

Reference number

395389

Salary

£72,664 - £89,995

For further details on salary, please see the ‘Benefits’ section.

A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

GBP

Job grade

Grade 6

Contract type

Permanent

Business area

DWP - Digital

Type of role

Engineering

Working pattern

Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time

Number of jobs available

1

Contents

• Location
• About the job
• Benefits
• Things you need to know
• Apply and further information

Location

This role may be located in one of the following locations; Blackpool, Manchester or Newcastle. Please find further information on the Corporate hub locations here.

About the job

Job summary

Please note this role requires you to pass Security Check clearance. For further information, please see ‘Selection process details’.

Are you someone who has excellent stakeholder management and problem-solving skills?

Do you enjoy finding the root cause of a problem and building automated solutions to ensure it doesn’t happen again?

As a Lead Site Reliability Engineer (SRE), you will drive the adoption of SRE best practices across the teams you work with.

You will collaborate with application development and operations engineers in the practice of Site Reliability Engineering.

Be accountable for the reliability of the applications you support.

Working with Delivery Managers, Product Managers, and other SREs as part of a multidisciplinary team, you will actively manage the work backlog and develop reliability improvements. You will also lead initiatives to automate low-value tasks while balancing project delivery demands.

You will provide technical leadership to wider operational teams, along with technical oversight of the products and services they support.

Helping to develop and support the engineers in your team, introducing new technologies or practices to improve team knowledge, skills, and capability.

As a Lead Site Reliability Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring the reliability and performance of our applications and infrastructure. You will lead by example, providing technical direction and supporting the development and progression of SREs within your team.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead by example, provide technical direction, and support the development and progression of SREs within your team.
• Work across multiple teams as an engineering specialist, implementing organizational engineering standards.
• Support teams in building reusable, repeatable, observable, and reliable infrastructure.
• Design and develop techniques for improving application reliability, including run books, knowledge transfer, and ongoing SRE strategy within the wider engineering community.
• Collaborate with teams to investigate and resolve major or complex incidents, ensuring the right skills and expertise are available to respond effectively.
• Assess the impact of change requests in consultation with stakeholders, providing technical expertise and advice.

There will be a contractual requirement to join an “on-call” rota providing night cover 18:00-08:00 with occasional shifts 08:00-18:00 Saturday or Sunday. The cover is shared around the team and would normally equate to one shift per week.

Person specification

When giving details in your employment history and personal statement you should highlight your experience in line with essential criteria below:

• Proven track record of leading a team, mentoring junior engineers, and improving working practices.
• Proven experience in scripting to automate processes, eliminating manual tasks, and implementing infrastructure and configuration as code.
• In-depth knowledge of application and network protocols, including port management and certificate management.
• Demonstrated ability to build and enhance CI/CD pipelines for efficient and reliable software delivery.
• Strong experience in resolving complex technical incidents, ensuring minimal downtime and swift recovery.
• Expertise in reliability engineering, including capacity and performance management through effective monitoring, logging, and alerting.
• Ability to engage with stakeholders at various levels, providing valuable feedback and support.

If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact richard.hanley@dwp.gov.uk

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £72,664, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £21,050 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 23 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.

This job 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. The number of days that anyone will be able to work at home will be determined primarily by business need but personal circumstances and other relevant circumstances will also be taken into account. If you are successful, any opportunities for hybrid working, including whether a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for you, will be discussed with you prior to you taking up your post.

Salary Information

Pay for this role is from £72,664 to £89,995.

The maximum salary for the grade is £77,740, however a Digital Allowance of up to £12,255 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 should maintain their current salary.

Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion may move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or 10% increase in salary whichever would be the greater.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

Stage 1: Application

Your application will consist of three parts:

1. A Personal Details application form.

2. Your employment history detailing your responsibilities, skills, accomplishments, plus your qualifications and relevant training. Please copy this information into the box field provided.

3. Personal statement up to 1000 words. Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

When giving details in your employment history and personal statement you should highlight your experience in line with essential criteria listed in the Person Specification.

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 above.

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.

You will receive one combined score for both your Employment History and Personal Statement, which will be provided in your Personal Statement score.

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.

We recognise that AI may be helpful when applying for this role, but it is important to use it in the right way. Read the DWP AI Candidate Guide to understand how you can make the best use of GenAI while ensuring your application remains authentic and effective.

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.

You will be asked to do a 10-minute presentation on a specific topic. Further details will be provided to candidates invited to interview.

Interviews will take place from end of April 2025. Interview dates to be confirmed.

Furtherr Information:

Find out more about Working for DWP

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.

Offers of employment: Following the interview stage, should you not reach the required standard for the advertised Grade 6 role, we may be able to offer you a role which would be a grade below the advertised post under our “Near Miss” process. Any candidates falling into this category will be contacted once the interview results have been released.

Security Clearance Requirement

You must meet the security requirements before you can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check.

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.

For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website.

Reasonable Adjustment

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 .

See our vetting charter .

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard 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 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.

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 .

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/.