IT Ops Student Placement

Job summary

Have you completed the 2nd year of a relevant IT-related degree programme by the start date September 2025 and are you looking for a placement year in industry? If so, we would love to hear from you.

HM Land Registry (HMLR) are looking for four enthusiastic undergraduates to join a forward thinking organisation that recognises talent and encourages personal development.

It's an exciting time to join us as we continue on a major digital transformation programme. Our existing software systems form part of the critical national infrastructure, safeguarding land and property ownership valued at £7 trillion, enabling over £1 trillion worth of personal and commercial lending to be secured against property across England and Wales.

Job description

You will be joining HM Land Registry in September 2026, for a 12 month placement within our Transformation and Technology directorate in the vibrant, waterfront city of Plymouth. There are four posts available for a Junior DevOps Engineer, Infrastructure Engineer Server Management, Infrastructure Engineer Security and Infrastructure Engineer Databases.

Main duties:

• Provide technical support for maintenance of IT Infrastructure and platforms, as part of a wider infrastructure engineering community.
• Assist in the planning and management of technical changes related to your IT Operations specialism.
• Pro-actively support live services. Taking the responsibility for the resolution of live incidents or escalation, as appropriate. Support continuous enhancements to live services and systems to prevent service outage.
• Take responsibility for assimilating and developing own knowledge base, keeping up to date with emerging technologies and sharing this across the wider infrastructure community.
• Produce and maintain technical team documentation.
• Share knowledge and experience with others, in line with the continuous improvement agenda and to help build capability within the IT Operations Practice

What will you get from us?

A year tailored to meet your development needs and experience in a variety of different areas. We will work with you to ensure that you get the most out of your time working with us. We will support your development aspirations and offer flexibility in your working week, to enable you to achieve a positive work life balance.

HMLR believe that a blended approach to where you work may give you an improved experience and has clear business benefits. We expect everyone to typically spend at least 60% of their working time in the office. Please note in the training period, for the first 2 to 4 weeks, it will be expected that you spend 100% of your time in the office.

Please see the attached candidate pack for further information.

Person specification

You must have completed the 2nd year of a relevant (IT-related) degree programme by the start of September 2026 and are looking for a placement year in industry.

You have the following Essential Experience:

• Effective communication skills, including ability to interact and build working relation with engineers and other stakeholders.
• Technical information gathering, analysis and problem solving.

Please refer to the Desirable Technical Skills required for the role you are applying for.

Please note that these posts are not available for those that have completed a Masters degree.

For more information about the role and HMLR, please see the attached candidate pack.

Behaviours

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

• Making Effective Decisions
• Delivering at Pace
• Working Together

Technical skills

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

• Please see 'Essential Technical Skills' under each job description

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £32,114, HM Land Registry contributes £9,303 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land-registry/about/recruitment#what-hm-land-registry-can-offer-you

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, Experience and Technical skills.

Please cut and paste an anonymous CV into the online application form and include your qualifications and career history.

You will be asked to complete a personal statement (in no more than 1000 words). This will be used to provide details of how you meet the 'Essential Experience' criteria listed under each description

Essential Experience Infrastructure Engineer Criteria: Security, Databases, Server Management ​

• An interest in learning how IT operating systems, IT security, databases or programmes work​
• Coding experience, whether from university, personal projects or self-teaching, along with a passion for solving problems. ​
• Testing ideas and working with others and being open to learning ​
• Developing technical skills​
• An interest in Operating Systems i.e. Windows, Linux​

Essential Experience Junior DevOps Engineer Criteria​

• Experience of programming skills (e.g. Python, PHP, Ruby, Java)​
• Basic knowledge of using Linux operating systems​
• Awareness and interest in working in a DevOps environment.​
• Awareness of Cloud Hosting provider and understanding the benefits they provide

Please review your application form before clicking ‘submit’ – once you have submitted, you will not be able to amend your application. Ensure your application form is received by 23:55 on Monday 2 February 2026.

The sift will take place once we have received your application and if successful at shortlisting stage, you will be invited to attend a blended interview, in our Plymouth office. Interviews will take place shortly after shortlisting stage.

The blended interview will assess your technical skills, essential experience and strengths associated with the role. We want to hear your first, unrehearsed, natural response to the strength questions, and so we don’t advertise which strengths are being tested. The best way to prepare for strengths questions is to reflect on what you identify as your own personal strengths, and your preferred ways of working.

Candidates may refer to notes within their interview but they should be used as a prompt only.

HMLR is accredited to the Disability Confidence Scheme, which denotes organisations which have a positive attitude towards disabled people. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum essential criteria at the shortlisting stage are guaranteed an invitation to interview.
If any candidate requires the panel to consider a reasonable adjustment or there is anything else they would like the panel to take into consideration they are asked to notify us of this at application stage where possible or during the process as soon as it becomes a requirement.

You can find more information on how we use your personal data on our website.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

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.

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 : Chris Hatton
• Email : christopher.hatton@landregistry.gov.uk
• Telephone : .

Recruitment team

• Email : hrresourcingteam2@landregistry.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance to the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, please email hrresourcingteam2@landregistry.gov.uk in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from HM Land Registry then you may take your complaint to the Civil Service Commission: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/making-complaint/

Attachments

Student Placement Candidate Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 2744kB)