About this role
Salary: £61,000 - 101,000 per year
Requirements
- Extensive technical expertise in automation, orchestration, and secure DevOps practices.
- Ability to balance hands-on engineering with technical leadership and mentorship.
- A problem-solving mindset and confidence recommending and justifying technical approaches.
- Experience designing, building, and maintaining CI/CD pipelines using tools such as GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, or Azure DevOps, and using Git for version control.
- Experience with infrastructure as code tools such as Terraform, Ansible, or Helm.
- Experience with containerisation and orchestration technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift, or Tanzu.
- Experience with scripting and automation using Python, Bash, or PowerShell.
- Strong understanding of cloud platforms such as AWS and Azure, and of hybrid deployments.
- Knowledge of DevSecOps and cybersecurity practices in software delivery.
- Security clearance is required. The role is subject to BPSS screening and National Security Vetting, including eligibility requirements for SC and DV. Existing appropriate clearance is beneficial; clearance may need to be obtained.
- Desirable: expertise in secrets management and PKI, such as HashiCorp Vault.
- Desirable: experience with monitoring and logging tools such as the ELK Stack, Prometheus, or Splunk.
- Desirable: familiarity with service mesh and modern networking technologies such as Istio or Envoy.
- Desirable: exposure to data engineering and integration, including the Apache ecosystem, SQL, or Python.
- Desirable: recognised technical certifications such as AWS or Azure Architect, Kubernetes CKA or CKAD, or Terraform certifications.
- Desirable: experience influencing technical standards and best practices or contributing to professional forums.
- A good attitude and willingness to learn; experience with every listed area is not required.
Responsibilities
- Act as the technical authority for automation and DevOps solutions across projects and programmes.
- Lead the design and implementation of CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and container orchestration.
- Provide expertise in secure DevOps and DevSecOps, embedding cybersecurity into pipelines and environments.
- Capture and analyse requirements and shape high- and low-level technical designs.
- Take ownership of technical delivery for assigned work packages, including planning, estimation, and reporting.
- Mentor and coach DevOps Engineers and Technicians, developing the teams technical capability.
- Support technology assessments, feasibility studies, and roadmap development.
- Engage with stakeholders and customers, presenting and defending technical solutions.
- Guide and support the existing team, shape its technical approach, resolve delivery challenges, and help deliver against customer needs.
- Where clearance is pending, initially contribute to central initiatives and capability development while the clearance process is completed.
Technologies
- AWS
- Ansible
- Architect
- Azure
- Bash
- CI/CD
- Cloud
- DevSecOps
- DevOps
- Docker
- ELK
- Git
- GitHub
- GitLab
- Helm
- Istio
- Support
- Jenkins
- Kubernetes
- OpenShift
- PowerShell
- Prometheus
- Python
- SQL
- Security
- Splunk
- Terraform
More
We are a global aerospace, defence, and security company headquartered in Italy, with more than 53,000 employees worldwide, including 8,500 across nine UK sites. We are recruiting a Lead DevOps Engineer to provide technical leadership within an established team working with a customer on an important delivery. The role is based onsite at the customer site near Gloucester, with additional locations in Bristol and opportunities to work across other projects and customer engagements over time. This is a permanent role, and flexible hours and hybrid working options may be available; the role is listed as onsite.
We offer a company-funded benefits package including generous leave, up to 12 additional flexi-days annually, an award-winning pension with up to 15% employer contribution, mental health and financial support, employee-led inclusion networks, a bonus scheme, access to 4,000 online courses, referral rewards, and up to £500 per year for flexible benefits such as healthcare, dental cover, and gym memberships. We are committed to an inclusive, accessible workplace and can discuss accessibility requirements during recruitment. Our salary framework uses grade-based bands benchmarked against the external market.
last updated 43 week of 2026