Head of Software Engineering

Location: Liverpool, Newport, Birmingham

Contract Type: Permanent

Hours: Full Time

Closing Date: 09/03/2026

Interview Date(s): W/C 23rd March, psychometric testing to be completed 16-20th March

Crown Commercial Service (CCS) will become Government Commercial Agency (GCA) on 1 April 2026. Please visit our website for further details.

Watch our Webinar on the above link and gain valuable insight into CCS and our recruitment processes.

Call to action

We are seeking a highly experienced and inspiring Head of Software Engineering to lead our technical capability and drive the design, development, and operation of modern digital services. This role is central to the department's mission, requiring a leader who can blend exceptional technical expertise with a commitment to service led model and public value.

The Head of Software Engineering will provide strategic leadership and professional direction to our engineering community. You will be responsible for defining the technical standards, architectural principles, and engineering culture required to deliver world-class digital services. You will move the department away from legacy "point solutions" toward a unified, API-first, and cloud-native digital estate, ensuring our services are secure, scalable, and meet the GDS Service Standard.

• Engineering Strategy and Standards:
  Co-Define with Strategy and Architecture team and champion the long-term technical vision and technology strategy for the department’s services and platforms, ensuring alignment with central government technology policies (e.g., cloud-first, open standards).
• Work with Heads of (Architecture, Delivery, Testing, Product) to implement the digital strategy using best practices
• Establish and enforce best practices in CI/CD, SRE, TDD, and secure coding (OWASP).
• Modernisation:
  Drive the roadmap for retiring legacy systems (e.g., migration of legacy portals to an Integrated Procurement Platform) while managing technical debt.
• Open Standards:
  Ensure all software is "Open by Default," promoting re-use across the Civil Service and alignment with the Technology Code of Practice.
• Be the ultimate owner of engineering quality, setting robust standards for clean code, test-driven development (TDD), CI/CD, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices across all engineering teams.
• Lead the development and modernisation of complex, large-scale systems, including integrating with legacy government systems
• Ensure all software development meets the high standards of the Government Service Manual and passes all relevant Digital Service Assessments (Alpha, Beta, Live).

• Build the Community:
  Act as the "Head of Profession" for software engineering, fostering a culture of continuous learning, psychological safety, and radical collaboration.
• Capability Building:
  Lead recruitment, retention, and career development strategies. Define the "Definition of Done" and engineering excellence standards across all multidisciplinary teams. Establish and evolve the department’s DDaT (Digital, Data and Technology) Engineering Capability, defining clear career pathways, skills matrices, and professional development plans (including coaching and recruitment).
• Mentorship:
  Coach Lead Developers and Senior Engineers, helping them grow into strategic technical leaders.
• Line management and Activity management:
  Manage the development team of perm staff and Manage a balanced mix of civil service and third party resources, ensuring knowledge transfer, transition planning is built in technical delivery plans and building a sustainable in-house technical team.

• Agile at Scale:
  Partner with Delivery Managers and Product Managers to ensure engineering capacity is aligned with the departmental roadmap (Now-Next-Later).
• Assurance:
  Lead technical assessments and peer reviews to ensure services meet WCAG 2.2 accessibility standards and high-performance benchmarks.
• SRE & Operations:
  Oversee the transition from "Build" to "Run," championing Site…