Lead Systems Engineer
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NHS England Lead Systems Engineer
The closing date is 17 November 2026
Job summary
A Lead Systems Engineer is typically the technical lead for multidisciplinary teams delivering and operating multiple components within a system.
We work on national, highly available distributed systems built and run by in house teams. These systems can differ in size, scale and purpose, but an example system would:
Have a round-the-clock requirement to be available to a level of 99.9% or higher
Have a national-scale impact on unavailability, and cope with the load associated with a daily transactional user-base of more than one hundred thousand people
Adopt modern Cloud best-practices and open standards to support interoperability and re-usability
Achieve high availability through operational simplicity.
Handle the architectural trade-offs necessary to avoid logical bottlenecks
Provide security controls appropriate for the storage of large volumes of sensitive data - hundreds of millions of records and documents.
These national critical systems enable safe, reliable identification across health and care, supporting services used by hundreds of thousands of people every day.
We have an exciting opportunity to join multidisciplinary product teams in Products and Platforms across a range of national services.
On-call
Participation in a shared on-call rota may be required to support a 24/7/365 service, this rota covers evenings, weekends, and public holidays
Main duties of the job
As a Lead Systems Engineer, you will:
Develop, build and operate national, highly available distributed systems within NHS England.
Work within and contribute to NHS England engineering principles.
Take technical ownership across the system space, including applications, environments, infrastructure and networks, pipelines, and operational tools.
Collaborate with peers to solve engineering problems and raise engineering standards across the organisation. This is a significant part of the Lead Systems Engineer role, in the order of 25% of time.
Drive engineering maturity within the team.
Coach and mentor colleagues to support team development.
Candidates will need to demonstrate experience of the following
Experience working on a complex application across all layers of the stack including application, infrastructure, CI/CD, testing, monitoring and alerting etc.
Implementing quality-focused development practices and testing techniques
Experience of taking a lead role, for example driving design decisions, managing stakeholders effectively, and providing technical leadership.
Experience of driving and implementing improvements within a product or team.
Working within a team to deliver software in a collaborative way, including coaching and mentoring colleagues to develop the team and contribute to a strong engineering culture.
About us
NHS England has a wide range of statutory functions, responsibilities and regulatory powers. These are focused on supporting the wider NHS to deliver high quality care, as well as doing those things that are best done once for the whole NHS.
Our staff bring expertise across clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial specialisms -- enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.
In March 2025, the Government announced that NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the department.
If you currently work within the NHS and if successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR).This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the process.
Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in our offices.
Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.
We cannot offer visa sponsorship for external candidates.
Details
Date posted
03 November 2026
Pay scheme
Agenda for change
Band
Band 8b
Salary
£95,878.08 to £111,409.92 a year per annum - includes a RRP payment of 20%
Contract
Permanent
Working pattern
Full-time, Part-time, Job share, Flexible working
Reference number
990-TDD-TA-EC5785-E
Job locations
Hexagon house
Pynes Hill
Exeter
EX2 5SE
United Kingdom
Job description
Job responsibilities
You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.
The post of Lead System Engineer has been awarded a Recruitment and Retention Premia (RRP) in response to current labour market conditions. In recognition of this, the role attracts an additional monthly RRP payment equal to 20% per annum.
Please be aware that RRP is non-contractual and subject to review.
Job description
Job responsibilities
You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.
The post of Lead System Engineer has been awarded a Recruitment and Retention Premia (RRP) in response to current labour market conditions. In recognition of this, the role attracts an additional monthly RRP payment equal to 20% per annum.
Please be aware that RRP is non-contractual and subject to review.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Masters or equivalent qualification, specifically in a computer, scientific or mathematical subject or equivalent experience.
Experience
Essential
- Experience of working on a complex application across all layers of the stack including application, infrastructure, CI/CD, testing, monitoring and alerting etc.
- Experience of taking a lead role, for example driving design decisions, managing stakeholders effectively, and providing technical leadership
- Working within a team to deliver software in a collaborative way, including coaching and mentoring colleagues to develop the team and contribute to a strong engineering culture
Skills
Essential
- Implementing quality-focussed development practices and testing techniques
Qualifications
Essential
- Masters or equivalent qualification, specifically in a computer, scientific or mathematical subject or equivalent experience.
Experience
Essential
- Experience of working on a complex application across all layers of the stack including application, infrastructure, CI/CD, testing, monitoring and alerting etc.
- Experience of taking a lead role, for example driving design decisions, managing stakeholders effectively, and providing technical leadership
- Working within a team to deliver software in a collaborative way, including coaching and mentoring colleagues to develop the team and contribute to a strong engineering culture
Skills
Essential
- Implementing quality-focussed development practices and testing techniques
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.
Employer details
Employer name
NHS England
Address
Hexagon house
Pynes Hill
Exeter
EX2 5SE
United Kingdom
Employer's website
https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/working-for/ (Opens in a new tab)
Employer details
Employer name
NHS England
Address
Hexagon house
Pynes Hill
Exeter
EX2 5SE
United Kingdom
Employer's website
https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/working-for/ (Opens in a new tab)
Employer contact details
For questions about the job, contact:
Business Operational Delivery Manager
Lucille Vater
Details
Date posted
03 November 2026
Pay scheme
Agenda for change
Band
Band 8b
Salary
£95,878.08 to £111,409.92 a year per annum - includes a RRP payment of 20%
Contract
Permanent
Working pattern
Full-time, Part-time, Job share, Flexible working
Reference number
990-TDD-TA-EC5785-E
Job locations
Hexagon house
Pynes Hill
Exeter
EX2 5SE
United Kingdom
Supporting documents
Privacy notice
NHS England's privacy notice (opens in a new tab)
Support links
© Crown copyright
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