Home Office Digital designs, builds and runs the technology and services that deliver, at scale, some of the UK’s most critical and well-used public services. The engineering capability plays a critical part in every area of the Home Office in delivering its mission from how we secure the border and control immigration to issues passports and reducing and preventing crime, supporting these services that impact millions of people every year.
The Home Office Digital estate consists of more than 600 systems, enabling critical services such as;
- 13 million Electronic Travel Authorisations since launch
- 3 million visa applications annually
- 130 million border checks each year
- 7 million passport applications annually
- 140 million police checks on people, vehicles, and property
The Director of Engineering role will have responsibility for the management and operational deployment of almost 1,000 engineers, while also being the head of our engineering profession setting the over-arching strategy on the tools, standards, methods and techniques we use every day, delivering software and services at pace.
Our approach to how we design, build and run digital services today and in the future makes this role an integral part of the cultural and operational shift we are undergoing to broaden our use of multi-disciplinary teams and place decision making as close to our service delivery teams as possible.
As an experienced engineering lead with a deep understanding of how to operate in a fast paced, security critical and highly visible environment, you will bring your experience to the department to embed engineering discipline and modern software development practices into our teams.
Reporting to the Chief Digital, Data and Technology Officer, you will provide the strategic direction and vision for all software engineering activities undertaken across Home Office Digital, simultaneously championing innovation and best practice. With a budget of £60M this is a leadership role of exceptional criticality and complexity, requiring strategic digital engineering leadership experience at scale, and the ability to collaborate across government and industry.
As part of the Home Office Digital Senior Management Team, you will play a pivotal role in delivering the Home Office 2030 Digital Strategy, ensuring technology underpins national security and public trust as we continue to deliver across our missions.
Role overview
The role requires a leader with the credibility and influence to engage senior stakeholders and drive consensus across the department. Strong communication skills are vital, with the ability to simplify complexity and inspire change. The individual must combine strategic vision with attention to detail, commercial acumen, and resilience under pressure, while providing inspiring leadership to build and develop high-performing teams.
The role holder will engage and manage a large, diverse, and executive level group of stakeholders across the Home Office, and other organisations; ensuring stakeholders are bought into and engaged with delivery of engineering services. They will be responsible for managing a highly complex risk environment, ensuring an effective, proactive approach to risk management is implemented. Including the appropriate provision of risk mitigation funding.
The Director of Engineering is a senior technical and strategic leader, responsible for shaping and delivering the department’s software engineering function and wider technology delivery strategy.
Person specification
Essential Criteria
The role requires a senior software engineering leader with the credibility and influence to manage a sizeable engineering workforce, engage senior stakeholders and drive consensus across the department.
Strong and confident communication skills are vital, with the ability to simplify complexity and inspire change. The individual must combine strategic vision with attention to detail, commercial acumen, and resilience under pressure, while providing inspiring leadership to continue to build and develop high performing teams across the department.
Extensive Digital, Engineering and Technology Leadership
- Experience at senior level within complex, multi-divisional organisations, delivering high-transaction, user-centric services across a mix of legacy systems and modern digital solutions with a proven ability to lead dispersed teams in software development, and deliver results through others in challenging and often ambiguous environments.
Strategic Vision and Horizon Scanning
- Ability to use insights from strategic horizon scanning to set digital vision across the Home Office and input at government level, including compelling software engineering roadmaps aligned to organisational strategy, demonstrating originality and judgement supporting a fast-paced environments.
- Able to describe end to end software delivery and how technology is changing and developing through that lifecycle and the benefits and risks in adoption to support the organisation through digital change.
Inspirational Leadership
- Ability to convey and embed a persuasive future vision, inspiring confidence and commitment at all levels, and attracting, retaining, and developing diverse talent to create an inclusive, high-performing organisation.
- Experience leading people, and helping to deliver change across a complex delivery organisation. Ability to operate alongside a series of digital transformation programmes and provide the right strategic direction and thought leadership, as part of the senior leadership team, into the wider organisation.
Financial and Commercial Acumen
- Evidence of managing significant budgets and complex supplier landscapes while applying innovative and highly strategic approaches to sourcing services efficiently.
- Experience in managing supplier and commercial outcomes through effective market engagement, commercial engagement, and supplier management.
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £120,000, Home Office contributes £34,764 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
- Learning and development tailored to your role
- An environment with flexible working options
- A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
- A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience.
Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.
Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Selection process details
Online application
Please submit your application to [email protected] no later than 23:55hrs on Tuesday 21st July 2026.
You will be asked to provide:
- A CV - setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role. Please provide reasons for any gaps within the last two years.
- A Statement of Suitability – (limited to 1250 words) providing examples of how your experience meets the essential criteria. This is your opportunity to give examples and show how your skills and experience fit the job requirements.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise. As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above.
This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by.
It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.
Security
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window). See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Nationality requirements
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).
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.
Diversity and Inclusion
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
Apply and further information
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
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Contact point for applicants
Job contact
Recruitment team
Further information
The Commission publishes a guide that outlines its approach to handling a complaint under the Recruitment Principles. This can be accessed at http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitment/complaints/.
We would recommend you read this guidance before submitting a complaint. Complaints should be sent in writing to: Civil Service Commission, Room G8, 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ.
Attachments
Director of Digital Engineering - Candidate pack - Opens in new window (pdf, 2508kB)
