Reliability Engineer

Mid and Senior Site Reliability Engineer – Platform Engineering, Identity & Azure

Government Digital Service | Grade 7 | London & Manchester

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is recruiting 3 Mid and Senior Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) to join its Technology & Security function.

These permanent positions offer salaries of up to £81,720, depending on location and capability, with opportunities across Platform Engineering, Microsoft Entra ID and Azure.

Important: The employer states that visa sponsorship is not available for this campaign.

Job Overview

Salary

The advertised salary range is £56,850 to £81,720.

• London base salary: £61,620
• Other locations: £56,850
• London capability range: £69,220 – £81,720
• National capability range: £64,450 – £76,950

Specialist pay allowances may apply.

About Government Digital Service

The Government Digital Service is the digital centre of UK government. It works to create a modern digital government and supports digital services used by millions of people.

GDS focuses on:

• Public-sector digital services
• Artificial intelligence for the public good
• Digital and data infrastructure
• Technology leadership and talent
• Innovation and procurement
• Transparency and accountability

GDS is part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employs more than 1,000 people across the UK.

About Engineering Enablement

The roles sit within the Platform Engineering, Resilience and Cyber directorate.

The Engineering Enablement programme focuses on:

• Improving engineering efficiency
• Strengthening security
• Improving developer experience
• Providing infrastructure, tools and standards
• Managing cloud infrastructure
• Improving privileged access management

Two positions will join the Engineering Access team, implementing a Privileged Access Management system based on Microsoft Entra across GDS production services.

The third Senior SRE position will join the Cloud Platform team, supporting the transition of an Azure Landing Zone while continuing to operate the organisation’s AWS estate.

Key Responsibilities

As a Site Reliability Engineer – Platform/Identity/Azure, you will:

• Support Azure cloud platforms or Entra ID identity and access management systems
• Write Infrastructure as Code using Terraform
• Design consistent, reusable and reliable infrastructure
• Implement observability tools
• Monitor and respond to operational issues
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines
• Support production platforms and engineering tools
• Maintain platform availability, security and resilience
• Participate in on-call rotations when required
• Solve complex technical problems
• Share technical knowledge with colleagues
• Promote consistency, collaboration and continuous learning

Additional Senior-Level Responsibilities

Senior Site Reliability Engineers will also:

• Provide technical leadership
• Identify and implement effective technical solutions
• Line manage approximately 1–2 technologists
• Support the development and progression of team members
• Mentor and coach colleagues

Skills and Experience

Applicants should have experience in several of the following areas:

• Microsoft Azure cloud services and architecture
• Cloud engineering best practices
• Microsoft Entra ID
• Conditional Access
• Privileged Identity Management (PIM)
• SCIM
• Platform Engineering
• Scalable and resilient cloud platforms
• Secure cloud infrastructure
• Terraform and Infrastructure as Code
• Automation
• Kubernetes or AKS
• Serverless application design
• Large-scale production services
• Programming
• Git and version control
• CI/CD pipelines
• GitHub Actions or AWS CodePipeline
• Information and cloud security

Programming languages used by GDS include:

• Ruby
• TypeScript
• Python

Additional Senior Requirements

Senior applicants should also demonstrate experience in:

• Technical leadership
• Acting as a technical lead
• Leading technical initiatives
• Line management
• Mentoring
• Coaching and developing technologists

You do not necessarily need to meet every criterion to apply. GDS encourages candidates who meet several requirements and believe they can contribute to submit an application.

Who This Opportunity Is Suitable For

This opportunity may be suitable for experienced professionals working in:

• Site Reliability Engineering
• DevOps
• Platform Engineering
• Cloud Engineering
• Azure Engineering
• Identity and Access Management
• Infrastructure Engineering
• Cloud Security
• Kubernetes
• Infrastructure Automation
• Production Operations

The Senior position is particularly relevant to professionals with technical leadership and people-management experience.

Working Arrangements

The role supports:

• Full-time working
• Part-time working
• Job sharing
• Flexible working
• Compressed hours
• Hybrid working

The current expectation is for staff to attend an office or non-home-based location 40–60% of the time over the accounting period.

Main locations:

• London
• Manchester

Current DSIT Civil Service employees based in Bristol may also be eligible to apply while retaining their existing location and pay if successful.

Benefits

GDS offers:

• Flexible hybrid working
• Flexi-time
• Part-time and compressed-hours options
• Civil Service Pension
• Average employer pension contribution of 28.97%
• 25 days annual leave
• Annual leave increasing by one day each year up to 30 days
• Additional day off for the King’s birthday
• In-year performance bonus scheme
• Career development and coaching
• Personal development training budget
• Employee assistance programme
• Pay advances, including season-ticket support
• Death-in-service benefits
• Cycle-to-work scheme
• Employee discounts
• 10 learning days per year
• Civil Service Learning resources
• Volunteering opportunities
• Up to 5 special leave days for volunteering
• Children’s holiday play schemes at selected London locations

Visa Sponsorship

Visa sponsorship is NOT available for this vacancy.

DSIT states that although it holds a visa sponsorship licence, it can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify for sponsorship.

Applicants should therefore already have the appropriate right to work in the UK.

Security Clearance

Successful applicants must meet the required security standards.

The role requires SC clearance.

The advert states that this would normally require approximately 5 years of UK residency during the previous 5 years, although this is not an absolute requirement.

Applicants with limited UK residency may require additional checks, which could delay or prevent clearance.

Successful candidates must also undergo the relevant criminal-record and personnel-security checks.

Nationality Requirements

The vacancy is broadly open to:

• UK nationals
• Irish nationals
• Eligible Commonwealth nationals with the right to work in the UK
• Eligible EU, Swiss, Norwegian, Icelandic and Liechtenstein nationals
• Eligible family members under the EU Settlement Scheme
• Certain individuals with settled or indefinite leave to remain
• Eligible Turkish nationals and certain family members

Applicants should check the applicable Civil Service nationality requirements before applying.

Selection Process

The recruitment process is expected to include:

Initial application screening

Applicants will submit:

• CV
• Responses to 2 knockout questions
• Security check question

Applicants should clearly demonstrate how their experience matches the person specification.

Stage 1 – Telephone Interview

A 30-minute telephone interview.

Stage 2 – Panel & Technical Interview

A 120-minute interview, consisting of:

• 90-minute technical interview
• 30-minute Civil Service behavioural interview

Additional stages may be introduced if application numbers are high.

Initial Sift Priority

If a high volume of applications is received, the initial sift will focus on:

Strong experience designing and implementing identity and access management systems using Entra ID, including Conditional Access, PIM and SCIM.

Assessment Areas

Candidates may be assessed against Civil Service Success Profiles, including:

• Working Together
• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions

Technical assessment areas include:

• Availability and capacity management
• Development process optimisation
• Information security
• Modern standards approach
• Programming and build
• Service support
• Systems design
• Systems integration

Recruitment Timeline

A reserve list may be maintained for 12 months.

Artificial Intelligence and Applications

GDS allows applicants to use AI tools to support their applications, but all examples and statements must be truthful, factually accurate and based on the applicant’s own experience.

Applicants should not present AI-generated content or another person’s experience as their own.

Application Deadline

11:00 PM on Monday 24 August 2026

Job Reference

475601

How to Apply

Applications should be submitted through the official Civil Service Jobs vacancy.

Official vacancy:
https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?jcode=2008694

Important Applicant Note

This is a UK Civil Service technology opportunity focused on Azure, Microsoft Entra ID, identity and access management, Terraform, Platform Engineering, CI/CD, cloud infrastructure and Site Reliability Engineering.

However, visa sponsorship is explicitly unavailable for this campaign. Applicants should also consider the SC security-clearance and UK residency requirements before applying.