Head of DevOps - Law Enforcement Data Service (LEDS)

This role sits within the DevOps team that underpins one of the Home Office?s most critical operational systems, providing AWS centric environments, tooling, and engineering practices that enable secure, resilient and high performing digital services at scale.

The Head of DevOps role provides senior technical and strategic leadership across this space, sitting at the intersection of infrastructure engineering, platform operations, delivery, and assurance. The role is central to enabling the delivery of the Law Enforcement Data Service (LEDS) Programme, supporting this complex programme while simultaneously maintaining business critical live services. The role ensures that platforms and environments are secure, resilient, automatable and fit for both change and scale , while enabling delivery teams to move faster with confidence.

Within the LEDS Programme, the role works closely with architecture, engineering, security, service management, and suppliers to ensure that platform capability, resilience and operability are designed in and maintained. It is also a key leadership role in shaping DevOps culture, standards and ways of working across LEDS and adjacent programmes.

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. Where this is the case, employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in the office . Applicants can raise any queries to the email address at the bottom of the advert.

Watch this short video to hear from members of Home Office Digital talking about the projects they work on and their experience of working here: Working for Home Office Digital., As Principal DevOps, you are responsible for key elements of our platforms, CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Delivery) pipelines and overall automation approaches. Your role is to support the delivery, update or evolution of these systems as well as to provide expert technical advice. You will also be expected to set the technical direction for our future platforms, be this through hands on delivery or design.

You will frequently collaborate with and take part in planning with senior business stakeholders to ensure that security, stability and capacity are embedded in the development and deployment of services. You will identify and explore opportunities for technology service and business improvement., Your main day to day responsibilities will be:

• Lead complex platform build, maintenance and evolution activities, acting as the technical expert in your area.
• Design and develop new platforms and systems, setting guidance, standards and reusable patterns for others.
• Own and drive the DevOps strategy across the LEDS Shared Infrastructure Team, aligned to Home Office Digital standards and roadmaps.
• Enable and support delivery teams through effective DevOps tooling, automation, CI/CD pipelines and self-service capabilities.
• Be accountable for the reliability, resilience, performance and operational effectiveness of services supporting critical national systems.
• Drive continuous improvement across deployment reliability, observability, recovery and environment consistency.
• Act as a senior technical advisor to programme boards, design authorities and assurance forums, providing clear technical direction.
• Lead, develop and inspire a high-performing DevOps engineering team, embedding modern DevOps culture across governance, security, risk and compliance

Working Pattern

This role is available on a full-time basis with the option of compressed hours working. This role is also suitable for part-time working hours, with a minimum requirement to work 3 days per week due to business requirements.

Essential Skills

You?ll have a visible passion for DevOps, with the following skills or strong experience in:

• Setting the direction for DevOps solution design, securing stakeholder buy-in and approval, and overseeing delivery through to implementation, providing hands-on support where required to de-risk outcomes (SWDN) .
• Setting expectations for operational automation and CI/CD practices, guiding the appropriate use of scripting and programming to deliver secure, maintainable and auditable DevOps tooling (PROG) .
• Ensuring effective automated testing strategies are embedded across platforms to validate resilience, security and operational behaviour, providing confidence for live, national-critical services (TEST) .
• Overseeing the delivery of automated build and deployment pipelines, ensuring consistent integration, controlled promotion across environments and reliable release into live service (SINT) .
• Providing assurance that data management practices covering backup, recovery, access control and data handling?meet audit, regulatory and policing requirements (DATM) .
• Accountable for the effective support of live services, ensuring incidents are diagnosed and resolved efficiently across AWS and Kubernetes platforms, recovery is increasingly automated, and service stability is maintained (ASUP) ., The allowance values are set by the Home Office, subject to remaining in a qualifying role. This allowance is non-contractual, subject to an annual review and could be withdrawn at any time.

For both new entrants and existing civil servants, the total compensation offer is a combination of base salary and, if applicable, a capability-based allowance. The pay ranges for this role are National: £76,117 - £83,729. New entrants to the Civil Service will start on the pay range minimum. For existing civil servants, our policies on level transfer and promotion will apply.

Working at the Home Office

Every day, Home Office civil servants do brilliant work to develop and deliver policies and services that affect the lives of people across the country and beyond. To do this effectively and fairly, the Home Office is committed to representing modern Britain in all its diversity, and creating a welcoming, inclusive workplace where all our people can bring their whole selves to work and perform at their best.

We are flexible, skilled, professional and diverse. We work to recruit and retain disabled staff and area Disability Confident Leader. We are proud to be one of the most ethnically diverse departments in the civil service. We are a Social Mobility Foundation top 75 employer.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant's details held on the IFD will be refused employment.

For further information please see the attached notes for candidates which must be read before making an application.

Existing Civil Servants should note that some of the Home Office terms and conditions of employment have changed. It is the candidate?s responsibility to ensure they are aware of the Terms and Conditions they will adopt should they be successful in application and should refer to the notes for candidates for further details.

Transfer Terms: Voluntary.

You will need to meet the nationality requirements for this role and obtain the necessary security clearance to take it up.

Any move to the Home Office 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 https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk.

Reasonable Adjustments

If a person with disabilities is at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:

• Contact Government Recruitment Service via as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.
• Complete the ?Assistance Required? 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 are deaf, a language service professional.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the ?Contact point for applicants? section.

Feedback 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

• AWS, account management, tagging, security policies.
• Kubernetes, particularly EKS, and cluster plugins.
• Infrastructure as Code, ideally Terraform with experience of Helm charts.
• Amazon data service such as Aurora, S3 and Opensearch.
• Networking knowledge such as Route 53, Privatelink, Load Balancers and VPCs.
• CI/CD tooling such as GitLab and Jenkins
• Observability and monitoring tooling such as Prometheus, Alertmanager and Cloudwatch. Grafana Dashboarding., The essential skills listed above are reflective of the Home Office Government Digital and Data Profession Career Framework (based on the industry standard SFIA framework). Use the SFIA Levels of responsibility to understand what would be expected for each technical skills listed below. Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Software design (SWDN) - Level 5
• Programming/software development (PROG) - Level 4
• Testing (TEST) - Level 4
• Systems integration and build (SINT) - Level 5
• Data management (DATM) - Level 4
• Application support (ASUP) - Level 4, For meaningful security checks to be carried out, individuals need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time. Learn more on our website. Security Checks - Home Office Careers.

Please note that this role requires Security Check (SC) clearance, which would normally need 5 years? UK residency in the past 5 years.

Candidates must also hold or be prepared to undergo NPPV3 clearance.

However, in exceptional circumstances security clearance applications for candidates who have been present in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years may be considered. Failure to meet this residency requirement will result in your security clearance application being rejected., We are unable to sponsor any individuals via Skilled Worker Sponsorship / Tier 2 (General) work visas as we do not hold a UK Visa & Immigration (UKVI) Skilled Worker License.

Details Reference number 458400 Salary £76,117 New entrants to the Civil Service will start their role on the salary band minimum £76,117 for National roles.

You may be eligible for an additional non-pensionable allowance, pending a Capability and Skills Assessment, with a value of up to £19,483. A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97% GBP Job grade Grade 6 Contract type Permanent Business area HO - Home Office Digital Type of role Digital Engineering Information Technology Working pattern Full-time, Part-time, Compressed hours, Shift working Number of jobs available 1 Contents

• Location
• About the job
• Benefits
• Things you need to know
• Apply and further information, Benefits Alongside your salary of £76,117, Home Office contributes £22,051 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Why work for us...

Find out more information at: Benefits - Home Office Careers, but some of the primary ones are:

• A Civil Service Pension with employer contribution rates of at least 28.97%.
• In-year reward scheme for one-off or sustained exceptional personal or team achievements.
• 25 days annual leave on appointment, rising with service.
• 8 days of public holidays, plus 1 additional privilege day.
• Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. This is a non-contractual arrangement where all employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office.