Lead Engineer (Specialist) in DATA COLLECTION AND PUBLICATION (DCP)

Lead Engineer (Specialist), in Data Collection And Publication (DCP) Technology Directorate Permanent Leeds or London As a Lead Engineer, you'll help shape and support the Bank's technology estate, from cloud-native platforms to traditional on-premises systems. You'll collaborate across teams, lead by example, and help improve the resilience and capability of our infrastructure. This is a Lead engineering role within the Data Collection Platforms team. The team is responsible for the Bank's strategic data collection platform, as well as several other systems critical to the Bank's mission. Whilst we are looking for someone with relevant experience, we do not expect new joiners to have skills across our entire technology stack and will support you to fill technical gaps. A Day in the Role You'll contribute to the continual improvement of our technology estate, from cloud-hosted applications with infrastructure as code (IaC) and full CI/CD automation to traditional VM-based on-premises systems. You'll work hands-on, automating infrastructure deployments with Terraform and GitHub Actions, scripting with PowerShell, and improving CI/CD pipelines. You'll collaborate with engineers across teams, mentor junior colleagues, and contribute to a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement. You'll document your work clearly so that others can understand and support it. Whether deploying an Azure environment, resolving a build issue, or reviewing a pull request, you'll bring a security-first mindset and a focus on quality. Role Requirements We're looking for someone with minimum of 10 years experience, but we don't expect new joiners to have skills across our entire technology stack. Minimum Criteria Candidates should have the following skills and experience: - Practical experience in DevOps, SRE, or platform engineering, applying software engineering principles to automate delivery and improve service operations. - A professional background in software development, with hands-on experience building, testing, reviewing, and maintaining software. - Strong practical experience with Azure and Terraform, and experience implementing CI/CD pipelines. Familiarity with GitHub Actions is useful; candidates should understand how CI/CD platforms differ and be able to transfer their knowledge to the platform used by the team. - Hands-on experience deploying, configuring, or supporting Windows-based systems, together with working knowledge of Linux. Candidates should be comfortable working across both environments; deep expertise in both is not required. - Experience using Git for source control and collaborative development, and writing clear, concise technical documentation. Essential Criteria Candidates should demonstrate: - Apply sound software engineering practices to infrastructure and services, including maintainable code, automated testing, peer review, and controlled delivery. - Take ownership across the service lifecycle, balancing delivery with operability, reliability, and maintainability. - Monitor production service health, respond effectively to incidents, identify root causes, and turn lessons learned into lasting improvements. - Use observability effectively, including relevant metrics, logs, traces, and actionable alerts, to identify and diagnose service issues. - Apply a security-first approach throughout design, development, deployment, and operation. - Communicate technical decisions clearly, collaborate across development and operations, and support colleagues through knowledge sharing and constructive review. - Plan and prioritise work, exercise sound judgement, and continually improve systems and ways of working. Desirable Criteria Candidates with additional experience in the following areas would be particularly valuable: - Proven experience deploying and operating containerised workloads in production using Kubernetes or a comparable orchestration platform. - Demonstrable experience designing, developing, and operating microservices or API-based distributed systems, including addressing resilience and failure handling. - Experience implementing or improving production observability with Azure Monitor or a comparable platform, and using service-level indicators or objectives to guide reliability improvements. - Experience designing, developing, or operating services backed by relational databases, including writing and optimising SQL. - Significant software development experience delivering production backend services using one or more modern technologies such as C#, Java, Python, or Go. - Experience automating and operating Windows workloads in Azure using infrastructure as code and CI/CD, and/or administering Linux systems in production. How This Role Fits Into the Wider Bank This is a Lead Engineer role within the Data Collection Platforms team. The team is responsible for the Bank's strategic data collection platform, as well as several other systems critical to the Bank's mission. More broadly, this role contributes to the Bank's mission by helping to modernise and secure its technology estate. You'll be part of a team that builds resilient, scalable infrastructure to support critical services across the organisation, helping to ensure the Bank remains agile, secure, and future-ready. Our Approach to Inclusion The Bank values diversity, equity and inclusion. We play a key role in maintaining monetary and financial stability, and to do that effectively, we believe we need a workforce that reflects the society we serve. At the Bank of England, we want all colleagues to feel valued and respected, so we're working hard to build an inclusive culture which supports people from all backgrounds and communities to be at their best at work. We celebrate all forms of diversity, including (but not limited to) age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status. We believe that it's by drawing on different perspectives and experiences that we'll continue to make the best decisions for the public. We welcome applications from individuals who work flexibly, including job shares and part time working patterns. We've also partnered with external organisations to support us in making adjustments for candidates and employees in the recruitment process where they're needed. From 1st October 2026, we expect all our colleagues to spend a minimum of 50% of their working time in the office per month. This is to capitalise on the benefits of working together in person across teams, while maintaining the flexibility offered by home working. Subject to that minimum requirement, individuals and managers should work together to find what works best for them and their team. Finally, we're proud to be a member of the Disability Confident Scheme. If you wish to apply under this scheme, you should check the box in the 'Candidate Personal Information' under the 'Disability Confident Scheme' section of the application. The Bank values diversity and inclusion - we want to reflect the society we serve better, we want the best people to work for us and we want our workplace to be inclusive. We value all forms of diversity, including but not limited to age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religion and sexual orientation. One way we support diversity and inclusion is through our staff run networks. We are fully committed to having a diverse and inclusive working environment, and are open to considering how the role might be carried out with flexible working. As part of our commitment to expand our presence across the UK, this role can be based in either our London or Leeds office. Should you wish to work from one of our hubs (Cardiff/Newcastle/Glasgow/Belfast), you will need to confirm that this is possible with the hiring manager before applying. Where a role can be carried out from home, we are working towards colleagues spending at least half of their time in the office, so that we can all benefit from working together in person, while maintaining the flexibility offered by home working. We expect colleagues to spend a minimum of 50% of their working time in the office per month. Subject to that minimum requirement, individuals and managers should work together to find what works best for them and their team. Salary and Benefits We encourage flexible working, part-time working, and job-share arrangements. Part-time salary and benefits are pro-rated as appropriate. London salary: £80,320 - £90,360 Leeds salary: £72,320 - £81,360 The benefits package currently includes: - A non-contributory, career-average pension, currently providing a guaranteed retirement benefit of 1/80th of annual salary for every year worked. Through the flexible benefits programme, there is an option to increase accrual to 1/65th or decrease it to 1/105th in exchange for salary. The Bank may vary standard accrual rates and dial-up or dial-down rates, or withdraw the dial-up and dial-down options, at any time. - A discretionary performance award based on the current award pool. - An 8% benefits allowance, which can be taken as salary or used to purchase flexible benefits. - 26 days' annual leave, with the option to buy up to 12 additional days through flexible benefits. - Private medical insurance and income protection. Flexible Working This role is open to flexible working patterns, which may include: - Adapting your calendar to accommodate personal commitments, such as school runs, exercise, or appointments. - Spreading the 50% in-office attendance expectation across the month to accommodate different working patterns. - Working from abroad, subject to approval and policy. National Security Vetting Process Employment in this role will be subject to the National Security Vetting clearance process (and typically can take between 6 to 12 weeks post offer) and the passing of additional Bank security checks in accordance with the Bank policy. Further information regarding the vetting and security clearance requirements for the role will be provided to the successful applicant, and information about how the Bank processes personal data for these purposes, is set out in the Bank's Privacy Notice. The Bank of England welcomes applications from all candidates, but as a UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) approved sponsor, we have a responsibility to comply with the Immigration Rules and guidance. As such, our ability to employ individuals who require sponsorship for immigration purposes is limited. The Bank cannot guarantee that you and / or the role you are applying for will be eligible for sponsorship and that any application made to UKVI will be successful. Eligibility will therefore be considered on a case by case basis. This role closed on 25 October 2026 The assessment process will comprise of two interview stages. The Application Process Important: Please ensure that you complete the 'work history' section and answer ALL the application questions fully. All candidate applications are anonymised to ensure that our hiring managers will not be able to see your personal information, including your CV, when reviewing your application details at the screening stage. It's therefore really important that you fill out the work history and application form questions, as your answers will form a critical part of the initial selection process.