Job summary
The United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is a system leader for health security; taking action internationally to strengthen global health security, providing trusted advice to government and the public and reducing inequalities in the way different communities experience and are impacted by infectious disease, environmental hazards, and other threats to health.
Job overview
You will work in the Data Engineering and Enablement Division that reports into the Digital & Data Directorate. It's an exciting time to join as we seek to create leading Health Protection data capabilities that enable data scientists and data analysts to develop insights that inform public health decisions with resilience platforms and curated data assets.
The core activities of Engineering and Enablement include the ingestion of data sources, building data pipelines, curated data views and data capabilities fused from data, models and software that enable the exploitation of data by analysts, data scientists and MI teams.
We are seeking to mature our advanced platform capabilities with standardised practices, machine learning and agility needed to pro-active detect and respond to new public health issues. We are looking for a Senior Platform Engineer to work as part of the Engineering and Enablement team to support the operation and the development of our Enterprise Data and Analytics platform
Main duties of the job
- Work on the design and maintenance of scalable and reliable infrastructure, ensuring optimal performance and continuous optimisation.
- Develop and maintain tools and scripts for automating deployment and monitoring, whilst managing systems to maintain environment consistency.
- Enhance CI/CD pipelines for automated software delivery, ensuring rapid and reliable code integration and deployment.
- Apply security best practices, including access control and threat detection, and ensure compliance with industry standards.
- Address performance bottlenecks in the infrastructure, conducting load testing and capacity planning for increased workloads.
- Improve monitoring and alerting systems for proactive issue detection and quickly troubleshoot infrastructure-related incidents.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams and effectively communicate technical concepts and solutions to non-technical stakeholders.
- Contribute and review our comprehensive documentation for infrastructure and processes.
About us
We pride ourselves as being an employer of choice, where Everyone Matters promoting equality of opportunity to actively encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce.
UKHSA ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all our staff and stakeholders. To create, nurture and sustain an inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our workforce and wider communities. We do this through celebrating and protecting differences by removing barriers and promoting equity and equality of opportunity for all.
Please visit our careers site for more information https://gov.uk/ukhsa/careers
Location
Hybrid any Core HQ
This role is being offered as hybrid working based at any of our Core HQ's. We offer great flexible working opportunities at UKHSA and operate using a hybrid working model where business needs allow. This provides us with greater flexibility about how and where we work, to get the best from our workforce. As a hybrid worker, you will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of your contractual working hours (approximately 3 days a week pro rata, (averaged over a month) working at one of UKHSA's core HQ's (Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, and London)
Our core HQ offices are modern and newly refurbished with excellent city centre transport link and benefit from benefit from co-location with other government departments such as the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC).
Job description
Job responsibilities
- Working on the design and implementation of robust, scalable, and highly available infrastructure solutions, while continuously monitoring, maintaining, and optimising existing infrastructure for performance and reliability.
- Develop and maintain automation scripts and tools to streamline deployment, configuration, and monitoring processes, and implement configuration management systems for environment consistency.
- Enhance CI/CD pipelines to automate software delivery, testing, and deployment, managing code integration for rapid and reliable releases.
- Apply security best practices including access control, vulnerability scanning, and threat detection, and ensure infrastructure compliance with industry standards and regulations.
- Address performance bottlenecks and optimisation opportunities within the infrastructure stack, and conduct load testing and capacity planning for anticipated increased workloads.
- Improve monitoring and alerting systems for proactive issue detection and resolution and troubleshoot and resolve infrastructure-related incidents promptly.
- Contribute to our comprehensive documentation for infrastructure, processes, and procedures, ensuring it remains up-to-date and accessible to team members.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams such as developers and system administrators, and effectively communicate technical concepts and solutions to non-technical stakeholders.
- Stay informed about emerging technologies and industry best practices in platform engineering and DevOps, introducing innovative solutions to enhance infrastructure and processes.
- Encourage a diverse range of people, promote business objectives, and model the behaviours and standards expected of an experienced civil service member.
- Contribute to the decision-making throughout the product life cycle and phases of product delivery, from stakeholder engagement to analysis, development of platform designs, and implementation.
- Act as a DevOps champion and promote DevOps and Agile best practices with passion.
- Be a team player, support team members for success, recognising the bigger picture, and going the extra mile for high quality delivery in a high-performing organisation.
- Understand the needs of technical and business stakeholders into technical requirements, manage stakeholder expectations, and contribute to challenging discussions.
- Apply knowledge of techniques and concepts required for the role, liaise with other technical teams for seamless service delivery, and identify areas for impactful innovation in data tools and techniques.
- Advance engineering excellence across the Agency through contributions to our engineering community of practice, focusing on sharing knowledge, enhancing standards, and providing a foundation for technical growth.
Essential criteria:
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Working knowledge with designing, implementing, and maintaining infrastructure using Terraform, and of IaC principles that ensure scalability, reliability, and security.
- AWS Expertise: Hands on experience with Amazon Web Services (AWS), including but not limited to EC2, S3, Lambda, IAM, Redshift, and VPC configurations, along with an understanding of AWS best practices. Azure experience is also applicable.
- Git/GitHub: Experience using Git/GitHub for version control, including creating and managing repositories, setting up branching strategies. Azure DevOps expectance is also applicable.
- DevOps Methodologies: Knowledge of DevOps principles and practices, with an understanding of how to orchestrate and automate end-to-end CI/CD pipelines for software deployment, testing, and monitoring.
- Scripting and Programming: Extensive experience with programming languages (e.g., Python, Scala, R, Bash). Able to code, test, correct, and document programs and scripts. Facilitated code reviews and applied refactoring techniques to enhance an applications codebase.
- Disaster Recovery and High Availability: Knowledge of disaster recovery plans, as well as strategies for achieving high availability and fault tolerance.
- Containerisation and Orchestration: Experience with using containerisation technologies such as Docker and container orchestration tools like Kubernetes, to enable efficient deployment and scaling of containerised applications.
- Security and Compliance: Working knowledge of security in cloud and infrastructure management, and the need for robust security measures and compliance standards within the environment.
- Experience: Significant experience as a Platform / DevOps Engineer, with experience in both routine business operations and projects addressing data processing and advanced analytic challenges.
- Educated to higher degree level in computer science or relevant numerate, technical or computer science experience
Desirable criteria:
- Data Modelling: Experience with data modelling concepts and principles and can produce relevant data models. Have developed data integration procedures.
- Data Ingestion: Hands on experience with data ingestion processes. Have worked with data sharing agreements and Data Protection Impact Assessments.
- Metadata Management: Understand various tools for storing and working with metadata. Be able to manage changes to existing metadata repositories.
- Data Analysis & Analytics: Operational knowledge in business intelligence tools, applications, and systems. Have used a range of statistical practices. Understand how advanced analysis results can be turned into business decision-making insights.
- Monitoring and Logging: Experience using monitoring, alerting, and logging solutions.
- Project Management: Experience using project management tools like JIRA, Azure DevOps, or similar tools within an Agile/Scrum development environment.
- Lifecycle Management: Understanding of software and data lifecycle management for the efficient and structured handling of data.
- Change Management: Familiarity with change management processes to facilitate the transition of technology changes into production environments
Selection Process Details:
This vacancy is using Success Profiles and will assess your Behaviours. There will also be a technical test
You will be required to complete an application form. You will be assessed on the listed 10 essential criteria, and this will be in the form of a:
- Application form (Employer/ Activity history section on the application)
- 1000 word supporting statement.
This should outline how your skills, experience, and knowledge, provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with reference to the essential criteria.
The Application form and supporting statement will be marked together.
Shortlisting: In the event of a large number of applications we will shortlist on Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Working knowledge with designing, implementing, and maintaining infrastructure using Terraform, and of IaC principles that ensure scalability, reliability, and security.
Desirable criteria may be used in the event of a large number of applications
If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to technical test
Please do not exceed 1000 words. We will not consider any words over and above this number.
Feedback will not be provided at this stage.
Stage 2: Technical Test
Candidates who are successful at the SIFT stage will be invited to complete a coding test designed to assess the essential criteria for the role.
The test must be completed and submitted within 72 hours of receipt.
Late submissions will not be considered and will not progress to the interview stage.
Candidates who do not meet the required standard in the test will not progress to the interview stage.
Stage 3: Interview (success profiles)
You will be invited to a (single) remote interview.
Behaviours will be tested at interview.
The Behaviours tested during the interview stage will be
- Communicating and Influencing
- Working Together
- Managing a Quality Service
- Making Effective Decisions
- Changing and Improving
Interviews will be held week commencing 25th August 2025. Please note, these dates are subject to change.
Eligibility Criteria
Across government
This vacancy is open to all Civil Service employees and employees of accredited non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) who were appointed on merit following a fair and open competition; or were appointed to a permanent post through an exception in the Civil Service Commissioners' rules. Prior agreement to be released on a loan basis must be obtained before commencing the application process. In the case of Civil Servants, the terms of the loan will be agreed between the home and host department and the Civil Servant. This includes grade on return.
Security Clearance Level Requirement
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is Security Clearance
For meaningful National Security Vetting checks to be carried out individuals need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time. You should normally have been resident in the United Kingdom for the last 5 years as the role requires Security Check (SC).UK residency less than the outlined periods may not necessarily bar you from gaining national security vetting and applicants should contact the Vacancy Holder / Recruiting Manager listed in the advert for further advice.
Job description
Job responsibilities
- Working on the design and implementation of robust, scalable, and highly available infrastructure solutions, while continuously monitoring, maintaining, and optimising existing infrastructure for performance and reliability.
- Develop and maintain automation scripts and tools to streamline deployment, configuration, and monitoring processes, and implement configuration management systems for environment consistency.
- Enhance CI/CD pipelines to automate software delivery, testing, and deployment, managing code integration for rapid and reliable releases.
- Apply security best practices including access control, vulnerability scanning, and threat detection, and ensure infrastructure compliance with industry standards and regulations.
- Address performance bottlenecks and optimisation opportunities within the infrastructure stack, and conduct load testing and capacity planning for anticipated increased workloads.
- Improve monitoring and alerting systems for proactive issue detection and resolution and troubleshoot and resolve infrastructure-related incidents promptly.
- Contribute to our comprehensive documentation for infrastructure, processes, and procedures, ensuring it remains up-to-date and accessible to team members.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams such as developers and system administrators, and effectively communicate technical concepts and solutions to non-technical stakeholders.
- Stay informed about emerging technologies and industry best practices in platform engineering and DevOps, introducing innovative solutions to enhance infrastructure and processes.
- Encourage a diverse range of people, promote business objectives, and model the behaviours and standards expected of an experienced civil service member.
- Contribute to the decision-making throughout the product life cycle and phases of product delivery, from stakeholder engagement to analysis, development of platform designs, and implementation.
- Act as a DevOps champion and promote DevOps and Agile best practices with passion.
- Be a team player, support team members for success, recognising the bigger picture, and going the extra mile for high quality delivery in a high-performing organisation.
- Understand the needs of technical and business stakeholders into technical requirements, manage stakeholder expectations, and contribute to challenging discussions.
- Apply knowledge of techniques and concepts required for the role, liaise with other technical teams for seamless service delivery, and identify areas for impactful innovation in data tools and techniques.
- Advance engineering excellence across the Agency through contributions to our engineering community of practice, focusing on sharing knowledge, enhancing standards, and providing a foundation for technical growth.
Essential criteria:
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Working knowledge with designing, implementing, and maintaining infrastructure using Terraform, and of IaC principles that ensure scalability, reliability, and security.
- AWS Expertise: Hands on experience with Amazon Web Services (AWS), including but not limited to EC2, S3, Lambda, IAM, Redshift, and VPC configurations, along with an understanding of AWS best practices. Azure experience is also applicable.
- Git/GitHub: Experience using Git/GitHub for version control, including creating and managing repositories, setting up branching strategies. Azure DevOps expectance is also applicable.
- DevOps Methodologies: Knowledge of DevOps principles and practices, with an understanding of how to orchestrate and automate end-to-end CI/CD pipelines for software deployment, testing, and monitoring.
- Scripting and Programming: Extensive experience with programming languages (e.g., Python, Scala, R, Bash). Able to code, test, correct, and document programs and scripts. Facilitated code reviews and applied refactoring techniques to enhance an applications codebase.
- Disaster Recovery and High Availability: Knowledge of disaster recovery plans, as well as strategies for achieving high availability and fault tolerance.
- Containerisation and Orchestration: Experience with using containerisation technologies such as Docker and container orchestration tools like Kubernetes, to enable efficient deployment and scaling of containerised applications.
- Security and Compliance: Working knowledge of security in cloud and infrastructure management, and the need for robust security measures and compliance standards within the environment.
- Experience: Significant experience as a Platform / DevOps Engineer, with experience in both routine business operations and projects addressing data processing and advanced analytic challenges.
- Educated to higher degree level in computer science or relevant numerate, technical or computer science experience
Desirable criteria:
- Data Modelling: Experience with data modelling concepts and principles and can produce relevant data models. Have developed data integration procedures.
- Data Ingestion: Hands on experience with data ingestion processes. Have worked with data sharing agreements and Data Protection Impact Assessments.
- Metadata Management: Understand various tools for storing and working with metadata. Be able to manage changes to existing metadata repositories.
- Data Analysis & Analytics: Operational knowledge in business intelligence tools, applications, and systems. Have used a range of statistical practices. Understand how advanced analysis results can be turned into business decision-making insights.
- Monitoring and Logging: Experience using monitoring, alerting, and logging solutions.
- Project Management: Experience using project management tools like JIRA, Azure DevOps, or similar tools within an Agile/Scrum development environment.
- Lifecycle Management: Understanding of software and data lifecycle management for the efficient and structured handling of data.
- Change Management: Familiarity with change management processes to facilitate the transition of technology changes into production environments
Selection Process Details:
This vacancy is using Success Profiles and will assess your Behaviours. There will also be a technical test
You will be required to complete an application form. You will be assessed on the listed 10 essential criteria, and this will be in the form of a:
- Application form (Employer/ Activity history section on the application)
- 1000 word supporting statement.
This should outline how your skills, experience, and knowledge, provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with reference to the essential criteria.
The Application form and supporting statement will be marked together.
Shortlisting: In the event of a large number of applications we will shortlist on Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Working knowledge with designing, implementing, and maintaining infrastructure using Terraform, and of IaC principles that ensure scalability, reliability, and security.
Desirable criteria may be used in the event of a large number of applications
If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to technical test
Please do not exceed 1000 words. We will not consider any words over and above this number.
Feedback will not be provided at this stage.
Stage 2: Technical Test
Candidates who are successful at the SIFT stage will be invited to complete a coding test designed to assess the essential criteria for the role.
The test must be completed and submitted within 72 hours of receipt.
Late submissions will not be considered and will not progress to the interview stage.
Candidates who do not meet the required standard in the test will not progress to the interview stage.
Stage 3: Interview (success profiles)
You will be invited to a (single) remote interview.
Behaviours will be tested at interview.
The Behaviours tested during the interview stage will be
- Communicating and Influencing
- Working Together
- Managing a Quality Service
- Making Effective Decisions
- Changing and Improving
Interviews will be held week commencing 25th August 2025. Please note, these dates are subject to change.
Eligibility Criteria
Across government
This vacancy is open to all Civil Service employees and employees of accredited non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) who were appointed on merit following a fair and open competition; or were appointed to a permanent post through an exception in the Civil Service Commissioners' rules. Prior agreement to be released on a loan basis must be obtained before commencing the application process. In the case of Civil Servants, the terms of the loan will be agreed between the home and host department and the Civil Servant. This includes grade on return.
Security Clearance Level Requirement
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is Security Clearance
For meaningful National Security Vetting checks to be carried out individuals need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time. You should normally have been resident in the United Kingdom for the last 5 years as the role requires Security Check (SC).UK residency less than the outlined periods may not necessarily bar you from gaining national security vetting and applicants should contact the Vacancy Holder / Recruiting Manager listed in the advert for further advice.
Person Specification
Application form and supporting statement
Essential
- Application form and supporting statement
Behaviours
Essential
- Communicating and Influencing
- Working Together
- Managing a Quality Service
- Making Effective Decisions
- Changing and Improving
Person Specification
Application form and supporting statement
Essential
- Application form and supporting statement
Behaviours
Essential
- Communicating and Influencing
- Working Together
- Managing a Quality Service
- Making Effective Decisions
- Changing and Improving
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
Additional information
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
