Lead DevSecOps Engineer

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.

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.

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)

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.

Visa Sponsorship

ONS may be able to provide visa sponsorship where the role meets ONS sponsorship criteria and all relevant Home Office requirements. Applicants must hold, or be eligible to obtain, the right to work in the UK before employment commences.

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.

When a high volume of applications are received, the sift pass mark may be adjusted. Candidates will be invited to interview based on their merit order, with those achieving the highest scores being prioritised. Applicants who score below the adjusted pass mark but still pass will be placed on hold and may be invited to interview at a later date.

We often have similar roles available at different grades. If a candidate is suitable for a similar role or a lower grade than they have applied for, we may offer the candidate that role without the need to go through a further selection process providing the role has the same behaviours, and essential skills.

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 7 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.

Please note you will be asked to provide ID at the start of the interview.

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 16/09 - 23/09. 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 24/09/2026
• Interviews will be conducted from 12/10/2026

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.