Head of Engineering and Operations

Job summary

Role Purpose

The Head of Engineering and Operations is a pivotal Senior Civil Service (SCS) leadership role within the Cabinet Office's Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) leadership team. Reporting directly to the CDIO, you will serve as the Head of Profession for all Development and Infrastructure Engineering disciplines, overseeing the capability, competency, and capacity of the engineering and operations profession.

The core mandate of this role is to drive technical excellence and high delivery velocity across all digital programmes and services, specifically by embedding and governing engineering best practices within a large-scale Agile delivery model. You will work in close partnership with the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure technology standards are not only defined but are rigorously and consistently applied in execution across all technical teams.

Job description

Key Responsibilities

1. Delivery and Velocity Leadership.

• Accelerating Flow: Systematically identify, analyse, and remove technical debt and bottlenecks within the Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)pipeline, focusing on optimising engineering practices to significantly increase delivery velocity across all Agile teamsand value streams and digital services.
• Execution Governance: Ensure that engineering teams operate effectively within the Agile structure, supporting key delivery roles (e.g., Delivery Managers, Product Owners) to achieve frequent, reliable, and high-quality releases.
• Engineering Tooling: Own the strategy and lifecycle management of core engineering platforms, CI/CD tooling, observability, and testing frameworks to maximise developer productivity and automation.

2. Technical Standards and Assurance (In partnership with the CTO and Chief Information & Security Officer (CISO).

• Standards Adherence: Work collaboratively with the CTO, who defines the target technical architecture and standards, to establish robust mechanisms for the governance and consistent application of these standards by all engineers.
• Technical Integrity: Be accountable for the technical integrity, quality, security, and sustainability of the entire digital estate, ensuring all services are built to be secure, resilient, and scalable by default.
• Security & Compliance: Ensure all infrastructure-as-code and development practices align strictly with Cabinet Office security policies and government-wide technical mandates.

3. Head of Profession & Capability Management.

• Professional Strategy: Act as the strategic Head of Profession for the Engineering Development (e.g., Software, Data, DevOps) and Infrastructure (e.g., Cloud, Platform, Network) communities.
• Talent and Skills: Define the technical capability frameworks, recruitment strategy, and career pathways for all engineering roles, ensuring the Cabinet Office can attract, retain, and develop world-class technical talent.
• Community Leadership: Lead and sponsor thriving Communities of Practice (CoPs) to drive knowledge sharing, mentorship, and a culture of continuous learning and technical mastery across the organisation.
• People Leadership: Provide inspirational line management, coaching, and direction to senior engineering leaders (e.g., Principal Engineers, Heads of Engineering), fostering an inclusive, high-trust, and performance-driven culture.

4. Corporate and Stakeholder Leadership.

• Strategic Influence: Serve as a key DDaT representative in corporate and cross-government forums, advocating for the strategic importance of engineering capability and infrastructure investment.
• Budget Management: Strategic oversight of the budget and commercial relationships related to engineering tooling, platforms, cloud consumption, and professional development.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Effectively communicate complex technical strategy, progress, and risks to non-technical senior stakeholders, including SCS colleagues and Ministerial private offices.

Person specification

It is important that, through your CV and supporting statement, that you provide evidence of the professional skills, breadth of experience and personal qualities for this post.

Essential Criteria:

• Significant experience in a senior technical leadership role (e.g., Chief Engineer, VP of Engineering, Head of Technology) in a large, complex, and high-scale digital environment.
• Deep expertise acting as a successful Head of Profession for multiple DDaT specialisms, with proven success in defining capability and managing technical talent.
• Demonstrable track record of successfully implementing and operating within a large-scale Agile delivery framework or equivalent large-scale delivery model.
• Expert knowledge of modern cloud-native architectures, DevOps principles, infrastructure-as-code, and platform management in a major public cloud environment (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Proven ability to work in a demanding environment with senior stakeholders (SCS level and above), demonstrating excellent influencing and collaboration skills.

Behaviours

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

• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Working Together
• Changing and Improving

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £81,000, Cabinet Office contributes £23,465 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Whatever your role, we take your career and development seriously, and want to enable you to build a really successful career with the Department and wider Civil Service. It is crucial that our employees have the right skills to develop their careers and meet the challenges ahead. You’ll benefit from a wide range of training and development opportunities, regular performance and development reviews to ensure this development is ongoing. As a Civil Service employee, you’ll be entitled to a large range of benefits.

This includes:

• 25 days annual leave on entry, increasing on a sliding scale to 30 days after 5 years’ service. This is in addition to 8 public holidays.
• This will be complimented by one further day paid privilege entitlement to mark the King’s Birthday;
• A competitive contributory pension scheme that you can enter as soon as you join where we will make a significant contribution to the cost of your pension; where your contributions come out of your salary before any tax is taken; and where your pension will continue to provide valuable benefits for you and your family if you are too ill to continue to work or die before you retire;
• Generous paid maternity and paternity leave which is notably more than the statutory minimum offered by many other employers;
• Childcare benefits (policy for new employees as of 5 April 2018): The government has introduced the Tax- Free Childcare (TFC) scheme. Working parents can open an online childcare account and for every £8 they pay in, the government adds £2, up to a maximum of £2000 a year for each child or £4000 for a disabled child. Parents then use the funds to pay for registered childcare. Existing employees may be able to continue to claim childcare vouchers, so please check how the policy would work for you here.
• Interest-free loans allowing you to spread the cost of an annual travel season ticket or a new bicycle;
• The opportunity to use onsite facilities including fitness centres and staff canteens (where applicable); and occupational sick pay.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

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 (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

To apply for this post, you will need to complete the online application process, outlined below. This should be completed no later than 23:55pm, Thursday 29th January 2026.

1. A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years.
2. A Statement of Suitability (no longer than 1250 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the person specification.

Failure to complete both sections of the online application form (CV and Statement of Suitability) will mean the panel only have limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification.

As part of the online application process, you will be asked a number of diversity-related questions. If you do not wish to provide a declaration on any of the particular characteristics, you will have the option to select 'prefer not to say’. See the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy for more information.

Should you encounter any issues with your online application please get in touch with us via: scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Shortlist

Your application will be acknowledged when it is received.

A panel, including the hiring manager, will assess your application to select those demonstrating the best fit with the role by considering the evidence you have provided against the criteria set out in the ‘Person Specification’ section. Failure to address any or all of these may affect your application.

The timeline later in this advert indicates the date by which decision is expected to be made, and all longlisted and shortlisted candidates will be advised of the outcome as soon as possible thereafter.

Assessment

If you are shortlisted, you may be asked to take part in a series of assessments which could include psychometric tests and/or a staff engagement exercise. These assessments will not result in a pass or fail decision. Rather, they are designed to support the panel’s decision making and highlight areas for the panel to explore further at interview. For more information about the assessment process, please follow this link: https://scs-assessments.co.uk/

If you are successful at the application stage, you will be invited to attend a panel interview, in order to have a more in-depth discussion of your previous experience and professional competence in relation to the criteria set out in the Person Specification. We will be assessing against the success profile Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills at interview.

You may also have the opportunity to speak to the vacancy holder, Ross Maude - Chief Digital Information Officer prior to the final interview to learn more about the role and organisation. Please note this is not part of the formal assessment process.

Full details of the assessment process will be made available to shortlisted candidates. If you are required to prepare a presentation for the final interview you will be given the subject in advance.

If we receive applications from more suitable candidates than we have vacancies for at this time, we may hold suitable applicants on a reserve list for 12 months, and future vacancies in the Civil Service requiring the same skills and experience could be offered to candidates on the reserve list without the need for a new competition.

Indicative Timeline

We will try and offer as much flexibility as we can, but it may not be possible to offer alternative dates for assessments or interviews. You are therefore asked to note the below timetable, exercising flexibility through the recruitment and selection process, in order to meet the dates given. Please note that these dates may be subject to change.

The anticipated timetable is as follows:

Advert Closing Date: 23:55, Thursday 29th January 2026

Shortlist: Week commencing 9th February 2026

Assessments: Week commencing 16th February 2026

Interviews: Week commencing 2nd March 2026

Reasonable adjustments

If a person with disabilities is put 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 at: scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.
• Complete the ‘assistance required’ section in the ‘personal information’ page of your application form to provide information we should be aware of that will enable us to support you further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.

Reserve lists:

We may hold suitable applicants on a reserve list for 12 months, and future vacancies in the Civil Service requiring the same skills and experience could be offered to candidates on the reserve list without the need for a new competition.

Further information

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

Any move to Cabinet 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; for further information visit the Childcare Choices website.

Current Civil Servants (all contract types) will need to ensure that they are still employed as a civil servant at the point of starting in the relevant new post. If their contract ends (e.g. end of FTA contract or resignation) at any point during the recruitment/onboarding process for the advertised role, they will no longer be eligible and may be withdrawn.

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.

Please note terms and conditions are attached. Please take time to read the document to determine how these may affect you.

Any move to Cabinet 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.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

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.

Nationality requirements

Open to UK nationals only.

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.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.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 : SCS Recruitment Team
• Email : scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles.
If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and wish to make a complaint, then in the first instance you should contact Government Recruitment Service at: scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.
If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission at: info@csc.gov.uk.
For further information on the Recruitment Principles, and bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission, please visit their website at: https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk.

Attachments

Head of Engineering and Operations CIP pack Final Opens in new window (pdf, 727kB)Head of Engineering and Operations Accessibility Pack Opens in new window (docx, 429kB)