Lead Engineer (Specialist)

Location: Leeds

Job Description

As a Lead Engineer, you'll play a key role in shaping and supporting the Bank's technology stack - from cloud-native platforms to traditional on-premise systems. You'll collaborate across teams, lead by example, and help drive innovation and resilience in our infrastructure.

Flexible Working Options:

This role is open to flexible working patterns, these may include:

• Ability to adapt calendar as needed, this could be to fit in the school run, gym, or appointments
• A 50% in-office attendance requirement can be spread across the month to accommodate diverse working patterns, such as the flexibility to purchase a weekly train ticket for certain weeks
• Compressed hours (subject to approval and policy within the team)
• Working from abroad policy (subject to approval and policy within the team)

A Day in the Role:

You will be contributing your expertise towards the continual improvement of our technology stack, ranging from complex cloud-hosted applications applying IaC and full CI/CD automation, to more traditional VM-based on-premise systems. You'll then dive into hands-on work-automating infrastructure deployments using Terraform and GitHub Actions, scripting in PowerShell, or 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 also document your work clearly, showcasing it to team members and ensuring others can understand and support your work. Whether you're deploying a new Azure environment, solving a build, or reviewing a pull request, you'll bring a security-first mentality and a drive for quality and innovation.

Role Requirements:

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.

Minimum Criteria

We're looking for someone who has the following key skills and experience:

• Strong practical knowledge and experience of:
  • GitHub Actions
  • Terraform
  • Azure
  • PowerShell
  • Using git for source control
• Demonstrable experience writing clear and concise documentation

Essential Criteria

We are interested in hearing from candidates who have the following capabilities:

• Strong written and verbal communication and organisational skills
• Comfortable experimenting and learning from failure
• Ability to plan, schedule, and manage a demanding workload
• Professionalism, self-motivation, and a desire for continuous improvement
• Understanding and ability to provide quality, automated testing as you develop
• Demonstrate a security-first focus, baked-in not bolted-on

Desirable Criteria

It would also be beneficial, but not necessary, to have some of the following:

• Strong practical knowledge and experience of deploying and configuring Windows based systems in Azure via Github Actions and Terraform.
• Good practical knowledge and experience of SQL and Azure Monitoring
• Software development experience using C# and SQL Server.

How this role fits into the wider Bank:

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.

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-ensuring 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.

For most roles where work can be carried out at home, we aim for colleagues to spend half of their time in the office, with a minimum of 40% per month. Subject to that minimum requirement, individuals and managers should work together to find what works best for them, their team and stakeholders.

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.

Salary and Benefits Information

We encourage flexible working, part time working and job share arrangements. Part time salary and benefits will be on a pro-rated basis as appropriate.

We offer a salary as follows:

Leeds circa £72,320 - £81,360

In addition, we also offer a comprehensive benefits package as detailed below:

• Currently a non-contributory, career average pension giving you a guaranteed retirement benefit of 1/80th of your annual salary for every year worked. There is the option to increase your pension (to 1/65th) or decrease (to 1/105th) in exchange for salary through our flexible benefits programme each year. The Bank has the discretion to vary standard accrual rates and dial up and dial down rates at any time and to withdraw dial up and dial down options at any time.
• A discretionary performance award based on a current award pool.
• An 8% benefits allowance with the option to take as salary or purchase a wide range of flexible benefits.
• 26 days' annual leave with option to buy up to 12 additional days through flexible benefits.
• Private medical insurance and income protection.

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.

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.

This role closes on 3 September 2025.

The assessment process will comprise of two interview stages.

Please apply online, ensuring that you complete your work history and answer ALL the application questions fully and in detail as your application will not be considered if all mandatory questions are not fully completed.