Lead DevOps and Automation Engineer

Lead DevOps & Automation Engineer – DV or eDV Cleared Location: Fully site-based in Cheltenham, Manchester, London or Scarborough. Salary & Benefits: Up to £75,000£5,400 car allowance (or cash alternative)25 days' holiday, with the option to buy up to 10 additional days£3,000 clearance retention bonusAXA medical insurance6% pension contributionLife assurance (4x salary) Clearance: Active DV or eDV clearance required. We're looking for a Lead DevOps & Automation Engineer to lead DevOps capability across secure, enterprise-scale environments. You'll manage a team of engineers, drive automation initiatives, shape DevOps best practices, and play a key role in technical leadership, innovation and continuous improvement. What you'll be doing Lead a team of DevOps Engineers, supporting their development and technical growth.Drive the adoption of DevOps best practices and automation across multiple programmes.Design and implement DevOps and automation solutions.Develop scripts, services and configurations to support an Infrastructure as Code strategy.Provide technical leadership, mentoring and support throughout project delivery.Work with pre-sales teams to understand customer challenges and define technical solutions. What you'll bring Strong troubleshooting skills across infrastructure, automation pipelines and systems integration.A proactive approach to identifying risks and driving continuous improvement.Experience leading automation initiatives from concept through to delivery.Strong experience with Microsoft and Linux technologies in secure, highly available enterprise environments.Hands-on experience with automation tools such as Ansible and Terraform.Scripting skills in PowerShell, Bash and/or Python. Nice to have Strong knowledge of Configuration Management and Infrastructure as Code (IaC).Experience designing complex technical solutions and producing technical documentation.Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines using GitLab or similar.Experience with container platforms such as Kubernetes or Tanzu.Good understanding of network security and TCP/IP networking.Experience across on-premises, hybrid and multi-cloud environments.