Lead DevSecOps Engineer - External

Job summary

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime and migration.

The Survey Data Collection (SDC) service is responsible for the development, maintenance and continuous enhancement of the products that underpin high‑quality questionnaire design, survey delivery and online data collection across the platform.The service provides end‑to‑end technical and operational support across its product portfolio, meeting the needs of both internal and external users.

This Grade 7 Lead DevSecOps Engineer role will work closely with technical leads across SDC and will provide leadership and direction across the platform’s diverse and complex technical estate. The role will initially focus on a defined product area but may flex across the platform based on priorities. It requires strong knowledge and hands‑on experience of Google Cloud Platform (GCP) environments and services - including secure design, deployment and governance of workloads across GCP compute, networking, storage, IAM, and Cloud Security Command Center. The role also demands solid capability in Python for automation and tooling, alongside mastery of modern DevSecOps practices such as infrastructure‑as‑code (e.g., Terraform), CI/CD pipeline design, security automation, policy enforcement, container orchestration, and continuous monitoring to ensure secure, scalable and resilient delivery across the platform.

This campaign is for external candidates who wish to be based at either our Newport or Titchfield site. Therefore, this campaign has been linked with the internal advert 455419 Lead DevSecOps Engineer. If you are an internal candidate to ONS please apply via the other campaign. The selection and interview process will be combined, so you do not need to apply to both campaigns.

Job description

Lead DevSecOps Engineers are responsible for shaping technical initiatives of high complexity or risk to ensure the successful, secure, and scalable design, build and run of cloud platforms using infrastructure as code.

Responsibilities

• Designing, configuring, and delivering applications and infrastructure as code to serve a variety of business process and user needs.
• Working in a DevSecOps environment to support and enhance existing applications and infrastructure including operational processes, including the implementation and use of monitoring, management information and reporting solutions.
• Ensuring best practice security principles such as ‘least privilege’ are continually adhered to and embedding ‘secure by design’ in all elements of your work; ensuring risks are identified and appropriate mitigation actions are implemented.
• Being a practitioner and advocate in the use of DevSecOps technologies, tools, and practices.
• Utilise knowledge of requirements including functional and others, such as performance, scalability, resilience, and security to support the robust implementation and optimisation of business applications, demonstrating system functionality and performance through testing.
• Using Agile ways of working to identify and manage development tools and test environments, centralise code / configuration, CI/CD pipelines, maintain development standards and enhance automation.
• Sharing knowledge of tools and techniques; identifying and sharing good practices and collaborating to improve the capability of the team and wider Organisation.
• Providing coaching and mentoring to colleagues, ensuring continual improvement for the team and the wider Organisation.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Programming and Build (Practitioner) - Collaborate with others when necessary to review specifications. Use the agreed specifications to design, code, test and document programs or scripts of medium-to-high complexity, using the right standards and tools. You contribute to code reviews and give constructive feedback to others.
• Information Security (Expert) - Design, review and quality assure solutions and services, ensuring that they are specifically engineered to mitigate security threats. Lead others in using appropriate information security practices.
• Service Support (Expert) - Identify, locate and fix complex service faults. Advise others on different methodologies and types of service support.
• Availability and Capacity Management (Working) - You can: Manage service components to ensure they meet business needs and key performance indicators (KPIs).

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Managing a Quality Service
• Changing and Improving

Technical skills

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

• Programming and build (Practitioner)
• Information Security (Expert)
• Service Support (Expert)
• Availability and capacity management (Working)

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £60,007, Office for National Statistics contributes £17,384 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.

Inclusion & Accessibility

At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.

As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.

If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.

ONS are committed to flexible ways of working that support a healthy work-life balance. ONS has already considered how this job could be right sized for applicants working flexibly and we are happy to explore options with you about working part time, in a job share or flexibly, in line with our hybrid working policies.

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.

Security Clearance

For ONS the requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying and the department will consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.

If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please read the information available on Gov.uk on this link or contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying to discuss, as failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected and any offer of employment being withdrawn.

At the point of SC application, you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:

• Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
• UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
• Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
• Security Services records

Please note we will reach out to you once the advert has closed to confirm eligibility for this role, this will be via an e-mail. Please check your junk e-mails for any correspondence.

Application Process

Number of Stages: 2 stage process

Stage 1: Application

Stage 2: Interview

Stage 1 – Application

The assessment process at the application stage will be based on your work history, CV, skills, experience, and personal statement. It is important that your application is tailored to highlight the skills, knowledge, and experience relevant to the role.

A personal statement is required at application stage, the maximum word count allowed is 1250 words, which should not be exceeded. You should provide evidence for each essential skill criterion listed in the person specification. As these criteria are scored, it is advisable to give clear examples for each one, including the impact of your actions, ideally utilising the STAR technique (Situation, Task, Action, Result).

Please note that Success Profiles Behaviour examples are not required at this stage of the application process.

In instances where a high number of applications are received, the sift pass mark may be adjusted, and candidates will be invited to interview based on merit order, i.e., those with the highest scores.

Stage 2 – Interview

If invited to interview, you will be assessed using techniques aligned with the Civil Service Success Profiles framework, covering all behaviours listed in the job advert and any required technical skills.

You will be required to provide a 10 minute presentation at interview. The presentation topic will be emailed to candidates who have passed the initial online application stage, 1 week prior to interview. This presentation will assess candidates against the Success Profiles Behaviour Changing and improving.

Interviews will be via Microsoft Teams.

A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.

Important Dates

• Eligibility Security Clearance checks from 15/04 - 22/04 We will be sending you an e-mail with a form to fill out. Please check your junk e-mails for any correspondence.
• Sift will be conducted from 23/04/2026
• Interviews will be conducted from 11/05/2026

For the full terms and conditions of the post, please see attachment.

Please note that all campaigns may be subject to withdrawal at any stage if the internal resource position changes.

This role is eligible for the Government Digital and Data (GDD) Capability and Pay Framework. If you are successful at interview, your salary will be directly linked to your capability outcome, as determined by your performance in the Technical section of the interview.

• Capability Outcome: Assessed based on scores achieved during the technical interview.

• Salary Determination: Your starting salary will reflect the capability level assigned.

• Feedback: Full feedback on your capability outcome will be provided at the point of offer.

All successful candidates are required to undertake an annual capability assessment as part of their ongoing employment terms. The outcome of this assessment directly influences individual pay levels:

• Higher Capability Outcome: Results in an increase in pay.

• Lower Capability Outcome: Results in a decrease in pay.

Completion of the assessment is mandatory. Failure to complete the annual capability assessment will result in the individual being transitioned to ONS pay terms and conditions, with a corresponding adjustment to their pay.

If you're already in a GDD Group 1 role and receiving GDD pay, and you make a lateral move (i.e. same grade, different role):

Initial Capability Assessment:

• You’ll be assessed in your new role through the interview process.

• If your proficiency level is lower than your current one, you retain your current level and pay for 6 months.

If your proficiency level is higher than your current one, you will move to that level of pay.

Development Plan:

• During those 6 months, you’ll work with your line manager to create and follow a development plan to build the required skills.

Reassessment at 6 Months:

• If you reach your previous proficiency level, you keep your current pay.

• If your proficiency is still lower, your pay will decrease to match the new level.

• If your proficiency level is higher, your pay will increase to match the new level.

Starting salary for roles within the Government Digital and Data (GDD) Capability and Pay Framework is determined solely by the capability outcome achieved during the recruitment process.

Please note:

• Existing allowances (scarce skills) will not be taken into account when calculating starting salary.

• This policy applies to all candidates, including existing Civil Servants and ONS colleagues transitioning to the GDD Capability and Pay Framework.

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 (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 : Government Digital and Data Recruitment
• Email : Government-Digital-and-Data-Recruitment@ons.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : Government-Digital-and-Data-Recruitment@ons.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact recruitment.complaints@ons.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission

Attachments

GDD_ONS_External_Vacancy_Terms (3) Opens in new window (pdf, 31kB)