14659 - Principal DevOps Engineer
| Posting date: | 10 February 2026 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £71,381 to £85,257 per year |
| Additional salary information: | The national salary range is £71,381 - £80,419, London salary range is £75,674 - £85,257. Your salary will be dependent on your base location. London: £75,674 - £93,025 (which may include an allowance of up to £17,351) National: £71,381 - £88,900 (which may include an allowance of up to £17,519) |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 21 February 2026 |
| Location: | UK |
| Remote working: | Hybrid - work remotely up to 4 days per week |
| Company: | Ministry of Justice |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 14659 |
Summary
Principal DevOps Engineer
Location: National*
Closing Date: 21st February
Interviews: after w/c 9th March
Grade: 6 (MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)
Salary (for more information, please refer to the T&Cs at the bottom):
London: £75,674 - £93,025 (which may include an allowance of up to £17,351)
National: £71,381 - £88,900 (which may include an allowance of up to £17,519)
Working pattern: full-time, part-time, flexible working
Contract Type: Perm
Vacancy number: 14659
*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 are recruiting a Principal DevOps Engineer to join the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) and provide technical leadership and guidance across engineering teams in Justice Digital.
OCTO sets technical direction across the organisation. It defines standards, shapes platforms and ways of working, and supports teams to build and operate services that are secure, reliable and sustainable.
This role focuses on improving how engineers work by defining standards and ensuring they are implemented through shared tooling rather than guidance alone. You will lead central teams responsible for Developer Experience (DevX) and the Developer Portal, working closely with platform, security and architecture teams.
Alongside this, you will hold Head of Profession responsibility for DevOps, supporting professional practice and capability development across the organisation.
This role aligns against the Principal DevOps engineer role from the Government Digital and Data Framework
To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025
Our Tech Stack
We use a broad range of technologies and are looking for people with strong practical experience in modern software delivery environments.
Cloud platforms: AWS and Azure
Infrastructure as code: Terraform
Containerisation and orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes
Source control and CI/CD: GitHub, GitHub Actions
Languages: Go, Python, JavaScript, PHP
You will be supported to deepen your knowledge of our platforms once in post.
Our work is largely open source. You can explore repositories at:
https://github.com/ministryofjustice
Key Responsibilities
Technical and organisational leadership
Provide senior technical leadership on DevOps and platform engineering practices, including CI/CD design, infrastructure as code, environment strategy and operational tooling
Work with the Chief Engineer, other heads of profession, engineers and architects across Justice Digital to help shape technical direction and long-term technical strategy
Act as a technical escalation point for complex platform, CI/CD or operational issues
Maintain hands-on engagement with DevOps and platform tooling to retain technical credibility
Developer experience (DevX)
Lead the DevX team and set priorities for work that improves how engineers build, test, deploy and operate services
Define organisation-wide standards for engineering practice and ensure they are implemented through shared tooling, particularly via GitHub
Own and maintain the golden path for delivery, providing supported repository structures, workflows and patterns that teams can adopt
Identify recurring sources of friction in build, deployment and operational workflows and address them through changes to tooling or defaults
Keep DevX standards and tooling under review, evolving or retiring them as engineering practice changes
Developer portal
Lead the development and ongoing operation of a central Developer Portal, modelled after:
Singapore Government Developer Portal
HMPPS Developer Portal
Ensure the portal provides a clear and practical entry point for engineers to find approved tooling, standards, templates and guidance
Use the portal to support onboarding, making it easier for new teams and engineers to understand how to work within Justice Digital
Work with platform, security and architecture teams to ensure content reflects current ways of working and organisational requirements
Establish an operating model for the portal so content remains accurate, maintained and trusted over time
Head of profession – DevOps
Provide Head of Profession leadership for the DevOps Engineer role
Support capability development, progression and consistency of DevOps practice across Justice Digital
Build and sustain a DevOps community of practice
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.
Location: National*
Closing Date: 21st February
Interviews: after w/c 9th March
Grade: 6 (MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)
Salary (for more information, please refer to the T&Cs at the bottom):
London: £75,674 - £93,025 (which may include an allowance of up to £17,351)
National: £71,381 - £88,900 (which may include an allowance of up to £17,519)
Working pattern: full-time, part-time, flexible working
Contract Type: Perm
Vacancy number: 14659
*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 are recruiting a Principal DevOps Engineer to join the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) and provide technical leadership and guidance across engineering teams in Justice Digital.
OCTO sets technical direction across the organisation. It defines standards, shapes platforms and ways of working, and supports teams to build and operate services that are secure, reliable and sustainable.
This role focuses on improving how engineers work by defining standards and ensuring they are implemented through shared tooling rather than guidance alone. You will lead central teams responsible for Developer Experience (DevX) and the Developer Portal, working closely with platform, security and architecture teams.
Alongside this, you will hold Head of Profession responsibility for DevOps, supporting professional practice and capability development across the organisation.
This role aligns against the Principal DevOps engineer role from the Government Digital and Data Framework
To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025
Our Tech Stack
We use a broad range of technologies and are looking for people with strong practical experience in modern software delivery environments.
Cloud platforms: AWS and Azure
Infrastructure as code: Terraform
Containerisation and orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes
Source control and CI/CD: GitHub, GitHub Actions
Languages: Go, Python, JavaScript, PHP
You will be supported to deepen your knowledge of our platforms once in post.
Our work is largely open source. You can explore repositories at:
https://github.com/ministryofjustice
Key Responsibilities
Technical and organisational leadership
Provide senior technical leadership on DevOps and platform engineering practices, including CI/CD design, infrastructure as code, environment strategy and operational tooling
Work with the Chief Engineer, other heads of profession, engineers and architects across Justice Digital to help shape technical direction and long-term technical strategy
Act as a technical escalation point for complex platform, CI/CD or operational issues
Maintain hands-on engagement with DevOps and platform tooling to retain technical credibility
Developer experience (DevX)
Lead the DevX team and set priorities for work that improves how engineers build, test, deploy and operate services
Define organisation-wide standards for engineering practice and ensure they are implemented through shared tooling, particularly via GitHub
Own and maintain the golden path for delivery, providing supported repository structures, workflows and patterns that teams can adopt
Identify recurring sources of friction in build, deployment and operational workflows and address them through changes to tooling or defaults
Keep DevX standards and tooling under review, evolving or retiring them as engineering practice changes
Developer portal
Lead the development and ongoing operation of a central Developer Portal, modelled after:
Singapore Government Developer Portal
HMPPS Developer Portal
Ensure the portal provides a clear and practical entry point for engineers to find approved tooling, standards, templates and guidance
Use the portal to support onboarding, making it easier for new teams and engineers to understand how to work within Justice Digital
Work with platform, security and architecture teams to ensure content reflects current ways of working and organisational requirements
Establish an operating model for the portal so content remains accurate, maintained and trusted over time
Head of profession – DevOps
Provide Head of Profession leadership for the DevOps Engineer role
Support capability development, progression and consistency of DevOps practice across Justice Digital
Build and sustain a DevOps community of practice
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.