Senior Legacy Software Engineer (£45,900 to £57,400)

Would you like to play a leading role in maintaining and evolving one of DVLA's most critical business systems?

We're looking for a Senior Legacy Software Engineer to help shape the future of Vehicle System Software (VSS), the UK's vehicle system of record. You'll use your technical expertise to support and enhance a complex application estate, while helping to improve service performance, resilience and engineering practices.

This is an exciting opportunity to work with specialised technologies, influence technical decisions, mentor other engineers and contribute to the delivery of services that support millions of customers every day.

Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:

• Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here
• 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays a privilege day for the King’s birthday
• Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.

Read more in the Benefits section below!

Find out more about what it's like working at DVLA – Home , Civil Service Careers.

We are looking for a Senior Legacy Software Engineer to join the team responsible for Vehicle System Software (VSS), the UK's vehicle system of record containing information on more than 48 million vehicles.

VSS underpins many of DVLA's critical services and includes client/server applications, overnight batch processing and web services integrated with numerous internal and external systems.

As a senior engineer, you will take ownership of technical challenges across the VSS estate, supporting the stability and performance of existing services whilst helping to deliver enhancements and improvements. You'll work closely with architects, engineers and delivery teams to develop solutions that meet user and business needs.

Alongside hands-on engineering, you'll play an important role in developing team capability by mentoring colleagues, sharing knowledge and promoting engineering best practice. You'll also contribute to improving the robustness, resilience and long-term sustainability of our legacy estate as we continue our technology transformation journey.

We are recruiting at both Senior Executive Officer (SEO) and Higher Executive Officer (HEO) grades.

Responsibilities

Your responsibilities will include but will not be limited to:

• Leading the investigation and resolution of complex application and service issues, undertaking root cause analysis and implementing sustainable solutions.
• Developing, maintaining and supporting software across the VSS estate, including client/server, batch and service-based components, and working with relational databases to support service and business outcomes.
• Delivering technical changes and improvements, ranging from service enhancements to larger-scale project work, working collaboratively with architecture, engineering and operational teams.
• Identifying and implementing opportunities to improve system resilience, performance, maintainability and operational efficiency, contributing to continuous improvement and engineering best practice.
• Supporting and mentoring engineers, sharing technical knowledge and helping to build capability across the team.

Great line management is important to us as an organisation, and we will equip and support line managers to develop the skills set out in the Civil Service Line Management Standards.

For further information on the role, please read the attached role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.

Would you like to find out more about the role, the team and what it’s like to work in our department? If so, we are organising an open session where you can virtually 'meet the team' on 25th November at 12:00pm . Sign up here.

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.

How to apply:

Our selection process ensures a comprehensive assessment of each applicant's skills, and potential fit within our organisation.

The selection process for this role will be:

Stage 1: Sift of CV and Personal Statement

Stage 2: Interview

You must be successful at each stage to progress to the next stage.

Stage 1: Sift

As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide a CV and personal statement to Inspire People (our Recruitment Partners) which outlines your experience and suitability for the role (based on the experience points outlined in the essential criteria on this advert).

Upon receipt of your CV and personal statement, DVLA Hiring Managers will complete a sift. Please note; the sift will be completed on a rolling basis whilst the campaign is still live and so there is potential for feedback to be shared with you (on your application) before the advert closes.

To apply please click 'Apply at advertiser's site' at the bottom of the page.

Experience — you will be asked to provide a CV (unlimited word count) and a personal statement (750-word count). Please provide evidence of your depth of experience of the following:

• Supporting and developing business-critical applications in a live support environment, including experience of technologies such as CA Gen, PL/SQL, C/Pro*C, Unix shell scripting, relational databases, Java/WebLogic or Crystal Reports.
• Undertaking root cause analysis to investigate and resolve application and/or batch processing issues, using analytical skills to identify effective solutions.
• Developing others through coaching, mentoring, knowledge sharing or providing technical guidance within a team environment.

The sift will take place week commencing 30th November 2026.

Should we receive a high volume of quality applications, we may invite a shortlist of the highest scoring candidates to interview. This means that some applications that meet the required standard could be placed ‘on hold’ after the sift and invited to interview if the vacant position(s) remain unfilled. You will be notified if your application is being put ‘on hold’ once the sift has been completed. Following interviews, any applicants remaining on hold will be notified by the panel of the next steps regarding their application.

Stage 2: Interview

At interview stage, you will be assessed against the following Success Profile elements:

Behaviours – Leadership, Delivering at Pace

Technical –

Senior Developer System Design (Skill Level Practitioner)

Senior Developer Systems Integration (Skill Level Practitioner)

Senior Developer Service Support (Skill Level Practitioner)

Senior Developer Programming and build (software engineering) (Skill Level: Practitioner)

The interview will also include a Whiteboard Exercise and Coding Assessment. Guidance will be provided if you are invited to interview.

The interviews will take place week commencing 14th December 2026.

This interview will be conducted in person at our Swansea office (DVLA, Longview Road, Morriston Swansea, SA6 7JL). Further details will be provided to you should you be selected for interview.

Appointments for this position will be made in order of merit. If you are successful in the selection process but there are no further available posts for the advertised role, you may be contacted to discuss an offer for a lower graded role (with similar experience and responsibility requirements).

If you are unsuccessful in the selection process, your application may be considered for a lower graded position if your demonstrated skills and experience meet the requirements of the alternative position. Candidates will be considered in order of merit.

You can find out more about our hiring process, how to apply, and application and interview guidance on our careers site (opens in a new window).

Please note that we will try to meet the dates set out in the advert. There may be occasions when these dates will change.

Further information on the selection process

We may hold a 12-month reserve list for this role, which may lead to potential opportunities beyond the role you applied for.

If your application is successful but you have been dismissed from the Civil Service, your application could be removed at the pre-employment checking stage depending on the nature of the dismissal.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment. A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5-year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

All external applicants and current employees of accredited non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) will be required to undergo a Social Media Check. A Social Media Check is a review of your publicly available online activity, typically across platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and others. The purpose is to identify any public posts or content that could raise concerns for employers, such as:

• Hate speech or discriminatory behaviour
• Threats or acts of violence
• Illegal activity or substance misuse
• Sexually explicit material
• Extremist views or affiliations

Importantly, this check does not involve hacking into your accounts or accessing private messages. It only considers content you have chosen to make public. Employers use this kind of screening to help ensure their workplace remains safe, inclusive, and aligned with company values. It’s not about judging your personality or lifestyle - it’s about checking for potential red flags that might affect the role or company culture. If you have questions or concerns about the social media check, we would be happy to explain in more detail what’s being looked at and how your data is handled securely and fairly.

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