About this role

Details

Reference number

489271

Salary

£60,390 - £74,600

£60,390 - £69,510 (National) / £64,880 - £74,600 + £3,150 RRA (London)

A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Job grade

Grade 7

Level D

Contract type

Permanent

Business area

CPS - HQ Digital Information Directorate (DID)

Type of role

Digital

Working pattern

Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time

Number of jobs available

Contents

- Location (https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jpreview.cgi#section_link_location)
- About the job (https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jpreview.cgi#section_link_about)
- Benefits (https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jpreview.cgi#section_link_benefits)
- Things you need to know (https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jpreview.cgi#section_link_things_you_need_to_know)
- Apply and further information (https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jpreview.cgi#section_link_apply_and_further_information)

Location

This post can be based in any location within England and Wales where a Crown Prosecution Service office is located. You are expected to travel to Crown Prosecution Service locations as part of this role, based on business needs. The Crown Prosecution Service is a Disability Confident employer and all reasonable adjustments are considered in line with Equality Act of 2010.

About the job

Job summary

As the CPS Lead DevOps Engineer, you provide technical leadership for how development teams build, secure, deploy and operate modern digital services. You remain close to the technology, working hands-on where needed, while setting a clear and consistent direction for DevOps and DevSecOps across CPS.

You lead the continued improvement of our CI/CD and deployment capability, helping teams move software safely and repeatedly from code to production. Working across Microsoft Azure, GitHub and GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Azure Kubernetes Service, Terraform and modern application security tooling, you establish reusable pipeline patterns, infrastructure as code approaches, automated controls and practical engineering guardrails.

You also help teams adopt and get the most from modern platform engineering tools and practices. This could include building and securing container images with Docker and Azure Container Registry; deploying to AKS using Helm, Kustomize and GitOps tools such as Argo CD or Flux. You also improve service reliability and insight using Azure Monitor, Application Insights and Prometheus, helping teams turn telemetry into useful alerts and operational improvements.

You work closely with software engineering, cloud infrastructure, architecture and cyber security colleagues to ensure services are deployable, operable, resilient and production ready. A key part of the role is simplifying the developer experience by reducing manual effort and fragmented approaches, promoting self-service and creating a clearer paved road from repository to production.

This is a senior technical leadership role that combines strategic direction with hands on engineering, coaching and problem solving. It offers the opportunity to shape DevOps capability across CPS and improve the security, reliability and consistency of software delivery at organisational scale.

The Crown Prosecution Service is based in England and Wales. If you’re applying for this role and live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you must let us know when accepting this offer as you need permission to work from your home address if hybrid working is part of your role . There’s no guarantee that we will grant this approval.

You must be aged 16 or over at the point of starting in this role. The expected start date is approximately 8–12 weeks after the application closing date. You are expected to commence employment as soon as possible following the expiry of your notice period. Requests for significantly later start dates may not be accommodated.

As part of this role, you are expected to undertake direct line management responsibilities.

Job description

Your roles and responsibilities

- You provide technical leadership for DevOps and DevSecOps across CPS, setting standards, reusable patterns and practical guardrails while remaining hands-on where needed, assessing emerging technologies and prioritising improvements that support organisational goals and team needs.
- You design, improve and maintain CI/CD pipelines, release automation and deployment approaches that enable teams to build, test and deploy services safely, consistently and at pace.
- You embed security, quality, compliance and auditability into the software delivery lifecycle through automated controls, including code quality, dependency, vulnerability and software supply chain checks.
- You improve developer experience and operational readiness through infrastructure as code, containerisation, self-service tooling, observability, deployment diagnostics and resilient production patterns.
- You shape and evolve the DevOps and platform engineering roadmap, research and pilot emerging DevOps Tools and practices and assessing them against our existing stack, building a possible case for adoption including migration effort, long-term maintenance etc.
- You coach engineers and work across software engineering, cloud infrastructure, architecture, cyber security and suppliers to resolve complex delivery problems and drive measurable continuous improvement.
- You research and Pilot emerging DevOps Tools and practices and assessing them against our existing stack, building a possible case for adopting including migration effort, long-term maintenance etc.

A copy of the full job description is attached.

Person specification

To be eligible to apply, you need to:

- demonstrate substantial experience of leading DevOps or platform engineering practices in complex software delivery environments.
- have strong practical experience of designing and improving CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation and reusable engineering patterns, templates or guardrails.
- have practical experience with source control and delivery platforms, in particular GitHub and GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps
- have experience of deploying cloud-hosted applications, with practical knowledge of containerisation and orchestration using AKS/Kubernetes.
- have experience of infrastructure as code, using Terraform, and of embedding security and quality controls into automated delivery pipelines.
- be able to troubleshoot complex deployment and operational problems across applications, pipelines and infrastructure.
- provide credible technical leadership while remaining comfortable working hands-on with code, scripts, configuration and automation, and coaching engineers across disciplines.
- understand how to embed security, quality and compliance checks into the software delivery lifecycle, including code analysis, dependency and vulnerability scanning, and secrets management.

It is desirable that you have the below experience but this is not required to apply:

- Microsoft Azure, Azure Kubernetes Service, Helm, container registries and cloud native deployment patterns.
- Relevant professional certifications, such as Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104), DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400), or Azure Security Engineer Associate (AZ-500/SC-500).
- Observability, resilient Azure services, secure networking, ingress and egress, multi-region services, incident response and production-readiness practices.
- GitOps or progressive deployment tooling such as Argo CD or Flux.
- Knowledge of policy-as-code and automated governance, using tools such as Azure Policy.
- Experience designing resilient cloud services, secure networking, multi-region deployments and production-readiness practices.

Behaviours

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

- Managing a Quality Service
- Changing and Improving
- Leadership

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

- Managing a Quality Service
- Changing and Improving

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £60,390, Crown Prosecution Service contributes £17,494 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

Join the Crown Prosecution Service and find your purpose.

The Crown Prosecution Service is passionate about ensuring that we're a top performing organisation and a great place to work. We're a committed equal opportunities employer, creating a culture where you can bring your whole self to work, and individuality is truly appreciated.

This culture of inclusion is underpinned by our staff networks covering disability, faith and belief, LGBTQI+, race, social mobility alongside our mental health first aiders programme and wellbeing sessions.

The Crown Prosecution Service commits to offer its employees the following experience.

- You can do impactful, purposeful work that’s making a difference to your local communities.
- You are able to learn and grow, with access to the right opportunities and resources.
- We care about your wellbeing.
- We want you to feel valued, trusted and included.

We also offer the following range of benefits:

- Civil Service contributory pension of up to 28.9%
- 25 days’ leave, increasing to 30 days after 5 years
- £350 each year to spend on personal development
- lawyer training programme for all new prosecutors
- an extra privilege day to mark the King's birthday
- competitive maternity, paternity and parental leave
- flexible working including flexitime, and a family friendly approach to work
- Cycle2Work scheme, employee savings.

Diversity at the Crown Prosecution Service is about inclusion, embracing differences and ensuring our workforce truly reflects the communities we serve. We want you to feel that you belong and can thrive, whatever your background, identity or culture. As a Disability Confident employer, we're happy to support requests for reasonable adjustments and improve your recruitment experience. If you'd like any reasonable adjustments made to our recruitment process, let us know within your application or contact [email protected]

We want to ensure our employees can thrive at work and home and offer a range of support to achieve a balance. This includes flexibility of working hours, flexibility to support caring responsibilities and a flexible approach to deployment. We offer a hybrid working policy. You must spend at least 40% of your contracted hours over a four-week period at court, in an office or another official workplace depending on business need and the kind of work you're doing.

The Crown Prosecution Service also has a range of development programmes to support all aspiring, new and experienced managers with developing the skills, behaviours and knowledge to build their confidence and capability. Our Manager Induction Programme is mandatory for all newly appointed managers. This is a fantastic opportunity to support all our new Crown Prosecution Service managers with the tools required to perform effectively in their roles.

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.

Recruitment process

The recruitment process consists of an online application, assessment and interview

Personal statement

We ask you to complete a personal statement of no more than 1,250 words. You need to demonstrate the following experience/technical skills required for this role:

In addition, you need to demonstrate the Crown Prosecution Service or Civil Service values.

Behaviours

You are also asked to complete a statement of no more than 250 words for each of the following behaviours, setting out how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience match the specified behaviours and requirements:

- Managing a Quality Service (Lead Behaviour)
- Changing and Improving

The panel has the right to assess the lead behaviour ‘Managing a Quality Service’ first. If the standard on this behaviour isn’t met, the other behaviours won’t be considered and your application won’t progress. The panel also has the right to raise the minimum standard pass mark. The panel may also refer to the lead behaviour at the interview stage to determine merit order.

You’re not required to upload your CV. However, when submitting your application there is a ‘CV section’. You are required to provide information about your employment and/or academic history for the past three years, skills, and qualification details. The CV section will be assessed.

It’s your responsibility to provide the specified information in the requested format to ensure that you're considered for the post.

If you're unable to cover three years through employment or academic history, you must provide a character reference for clearance purposes.

Interview and Assessment

The interviews and assessments are expected to take place on 10 and 11 December 2026 .

Your interview takes place online through Microsoft Teams. A member of our recruitment team will be in touch with guidance. If you have any queries about this, contact [email protected]

You should keep these dates free or notify us if you're not available. We'll make every effort to accommodate your date preferences but we can't guarantee it.

We ask you to complete an assessment as part of the recruitment process for this role. We will provide details immediately before your interview.

We use behaviours to help us understand your experience, to see if you're a good fit for the role. You are assessed against G7 in the Civil Service success profiles behaviours framework . We are assessing 3 behaviours at interview and assessment stage:

- Managing a Quality Service – interview
- Changing and Improving – interview
- Leadership – interview

Essential Experience/Technical Skills - assessed at assessment

Other

This is a full-time post. We do consider requests for flexible, part-time working and job share, always considering the operational needs of the department.

Please note that the CPS is unable to offer visa sponsorship. If you require visa sponsorship to work in the UK, you will not meet the eligibility criteria for this role.

Clearance

If successful, you are required to secure a Security Check clearance , for which you must have a current valid UK address.

If successfully appointed, we ask you to complete a character enquiry form, nationality and immigration questionnaire, and national security vetting form.

The job you’re applying for is covered by Article 3(a) of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975, consequently Section 4(2) of that Act doesn’t apply. You’re required to disclose all previous convictions and cautions including spent convictions. Failing to make a full declaration will result in withdrawing your offer of employment if our checks reveal convictions that haven’t been disclosed.

To be cleared to Security Check clearance level, you have to be able to meet the residency requirement in the Cabinet Office guidance. For the Crown Prosecution Service, this is three years within the last five years

Reserve list

If you're recommended by the selection panel but not appointed to the current vacancy/, you’re put on a reserve list for 12 months. You may be offered another Lead DevOps Engineer post in the CPS if a vacancy comes up during this period. We may also approach candidates on the waiting list to fill other roles that require similar knowledge and experience.

Candidates who may not be appointable to a DevOps Engineer role (Grade 7), may be offered a XXX role (SEO) where appropriate.

Civil Service Commission

If you’re dissatisfied with the recruitment process and wish to make a complaint, please contact [email protected] with your concerns.

If you remain dissatisfied and wish to make a further complaint, please click on the following link to the Civil Service Commission complaints page Recruitment Complaints - Civil Service Commission

Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles can be found at https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/

Details of the Civil Service Nationality Rules are located at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules

Candidates are subject to UK immigration requirements. For the most up-to-date information on the requirements of working in the UK, please go to the UK Visas and Immigration website at https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a standard (or equivalent) 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) (https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families)
- 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 the Civil 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 : Caoimhe McCullagh
- Email : [email protected]

Recruitment team

- Email : [email protected]

Attachments

CPS Terms and Conditions (type, size)

NEW CPS Personal Statement Guidance 2023 (type, size)

Lead DevOps Engineer (type, size)

Apply now

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