Distinguished Engineer- (Head of Service Reliability Engineering)

Details

### Reference number

483652

• ### Salary
• £86,000 - £110,000
• dependant on experience
• A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
• GBP
• ### Job grade

SCS Pay Band 1

### Contract type

Permanent

### Business area

HMRC - CDIO - CEPO - Enterprise Live Services

### Type of role

Information Technology

### Working pattern

Flexible working, Full-time

### Number of jobs available

1

Contents

• Location
• About the job
• Benefits
• Things you need to know
• Apply and further information
• Location

Bristol, Leeds, London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Telford

About the job

### Job summary

This is a rare opportunity to shape reliability engineering across one of the UK’s largest and most important digital estates.

Enterprise Live Services (ELS) at HMRC is evolving into a modern, engineering-led organisation - enabling HMRC to deliver change faster while strengthening reliability, resilience and trust.

As Head of Service Reliability Engineering, you will lead a distinct, independent capability spanning services, products and platforms. You will make reliability, operability and observability integral to engineering from the outset.

With enterprise-wide reach and influence, you will set the direction for SRE, raise service maturity and build a lasting capability that enables teams to innovate safely and operate with confidence.

### Job description

The Head of Service Reliability Engineering is accountable for defining, embedding, and continuously raising service reliability engineering capability across HMRC.

Sitting within Chief Engineering & Platform Office (CEPO) and Enterprise Live Services (ELS), the role leads the independent SRE tower, operating as a centre of excellence for reliability, operability, resilience, and observability. The role does not own delivery, platforms, or live operations. Instead, it coaches, challenges, and enables product, platform, and ELS teams to meet enterprise reliability and service maturity expectations using objective, evidence‑based practices.

The role provides strategic leadership and technical authority to ensure that:

Reliability and operability are designed into services from inception

Assurance is grounded in observable service behaviour and maturity evidence

Enterprise standards enable autonomy and speed, rather than acting as delivery gates

HMRC can demonstrate confidence, auditability, and resilience at scale

### Person specification

Technical Leadership: Provides senior technical leadership in enterprise-scale Reliability Engineering, with the credibility to influence architecture, set standards and deliver reliability outcomes in complex, regulated environments.

Site Reliability Engineering (SRE): Leads the adoption of SRE practices by using SLOs, error budgets and reliability metrics to drive measurable improvements in service performance and operational decision-making.

Observability: Establishes and governs enterprise observability capabilities, using telemetry, dependency mapping and modern monitoring platforms to improve operational insight and decision quality.

Resilience and Recovery: Designs and embeds resilience practices that validate recovery capabilities, identify operational risks and strengthen service continuity through testing and evidence-based improvements.

Secure-by-Design Operations: Integrates security and reliability disciplines by using security intelligence, risk indicators and close collaboration with cyber teams to enhance service operability and resilience.

Cloud and Platform Engineering: Applies deep expertise in cloud-native and platform-based technologies to assess and mitigate reliability risks associated with architecture, platforms and continuous delivery environments.

Service Maturity and Assurance: Develops and applies service maturity frameworks that use evidence-based assessment to inform risk, investment and operational decisions rather than relying on compliance measures.

Executive Stakeholder Management: Communicates complex technical risks clearly to senior stakeholders and uses objective evidence to influence strategic decisions at Director and Executive level.

What an Outstanding Candidate Would Also Bring (Desirable): Brings experience operating in highly regulated environments, shaping engineering standards across organisations, building reliability communities of practice and supporting modern service management approaches.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £86,000, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £24,914 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides .

For Benefit details please speak to Lawrence Harris

Things you need to know

### 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 for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

### Selection process details

For Selection Process details please speak to Lawrence Harris

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 undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check .

See our vetting charter .

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)
• 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

### Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code 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 .

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 and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy .

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

### Contact point for applicants

#### Job contact :

Name : Lawrence Harris

Email : [email protected]

#### Recruitment team

* Email : [email protected]

### Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. You have the right to complain if you feel a department has breached the requirement of the Recruitment Principles. In the first instance, you should raise the matter directly with the department concerned. If you are not satisfied with the response, you may bring your complaint to the Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitment/complaints/

### Follow link to apply

[email protected]