Senior Infrastructure Engineer

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

• joining up public sector services
• harnessing the power of AI for the public good
• strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
• elevating leadership and investing in talent
• funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
• committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need

We are designing and building the UK Public Data Infrastructure (UKPDI) to improve how data is found, accessed, shared and reused across government. You will initially work on the Data Discovery Platform and contribute to other Shared Core Data Platforms as UKPDI develops.

You will work closely with the Head of Data Infrastructure & Engineering, architects, software engineers, data engineers, security specialists, product managers and delivery colleagues. You will translate architectural designs and service requirements into secure, resilient and operable infrastructure, while helping establish reusable technical patterns, delivery pipelines and operational practices across the UKPDI platform portfolio.

This is an opportunity to shape the technical foundations of new cross-government data infrastructure and help develop shared platforms that can operate securely, reliably and at scale across the public sector

As a Senior Infrastructure Engineer you’ll:

• design, build and maintain cloud infrastructure for shared government data platforms, using Infrastructure as Code and automation to ensure environments are consistent, repeatable and reliable
• build and maintain CI/CD pipelines, automating testing, security checks and controls, deployment and rollback
• build and operate container platforms and support serverless and compute workloads
• ensure infrastructure is secure, cost-effective and designed for appropriate levels of availability, recovery and operational resilience
• implement monitoring, logging, alerting and operational tooling, and troubleshoot complex infrastructure issues, contributing to incident response, root-cause analysis and continuous improvement
• develop and maintain shell scripts, automation tooling and code in appropriate languages, and operational runbooks to support infrastructure operations, deployment and developer workflows
• provide technical leadership in infrastructure engineering, working with architects, software engineers and other specialists, and contribute to technical standards and engineering practices across the team

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)

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• a simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and cover letter of up to 750 words. Important tip - please ensure that your cover letter includes how you meet the skills and experience listed in the “person specification” section above
• a 60 minute video interview

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

In the event we receive a high volume of applications, we will conduct the initial sift against the lead criteria which is:

• cloud infrastructure: experience designing, building and operating secure, scalable, resilient and cost-effective infrastructure in AWS, including containerised platforms using Amazon EKS and Docker. Ability to translate architectural and service requirements into effective infrastructure solutions

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:

• working together
• delivering at pace
• changing and improving

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Government Digital and Data Capability Framework for the Senior Infrastructure Engineer role:

• IT infrastructure
• Coding and scripting
• Testing
• Troubleshooting and problem resolution
• Modern development standards

Recruitment Timeline

Sift completion: 21/9/2026

Panel interviews: Starting from 28/9/2026

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

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 and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

Please note that this role requires SC clearance, which would normally need 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years. This is not an absolute requirement, but supplementary checks may be needed where individuals have not lived in the UK for that period. This may mean your security clearance (and therefore your appointment) will take longer or, in some cases, not be possible.

For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers.

Sponsorship

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

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