Lead Systems Engineer
NHS EnglandExeter, South West
Overview
This is a NHS role (permanent) with NHS England based in Exeter. The advertised salary is £79,898.40 to £92,841.60. Applications close on 18 November 2026. GovJobs has indexed this vacancy from its official source — use the apply button to view the full advert and apply directly.
Job description
A Lead Systems Engineer is typically the technical lead for multidisciplinary teams delivering and operating multiple components within a system. We w...
Develop, build and operate national, highly available distributed systems within NHS England.
Work within and contribute to NHS England engineering principles.
Take technical ownership across the system space, including applications, environments, infrastructure and networks, pipelines, and operational tools.
Collaborate with peers to solve engineering problems and raise engineering standards across the organisation. This is a significant part of the Lead Systems Engineer role, in the order of 25% of time.
Drive engineering maturity within the team.
Coach and mentor colleagues to support team development.
Candidates will need to demonstrate experience of the following
Experience working on a complex application across all layers of the stack including application, infrastructure, CI/CD, testing, monitoring and alerting etc.
Implementing quality-focused development practices and testing techniques
Experience of taking a lead role, for example driving design decisions, managing stakeholders effectively, and providing technical leadership.
Experience of driving and implementing improvements within a product or team.
Working within a team to deliver software in a collaborative way, including coaching and mentoring colleagues to develop the team and contribute to a strong engineering culture.
NHS England has a wide range of statutory functions, responsibilities and regulatory powers. These are focused on supporting the wider NHS to deliver high quality care, as well as doing those things that are best done once for the whole NHS.
Our staff bring expertise across clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial specialisms -- enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.
In March 2025, the Government announced that NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the department.
If you currently work within the NHS and if successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR).This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the process.
Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in our offices.
Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.
We cannot offer visa sponsorship for external candidates.
Essential: - Masters or equivalent qualification, specifically in a computer, scientific or mathematical subject or equivalent experience.
Essential: - Experience of working on a complex application across all layers of the stack including application, infrastructure, CI/CD, testing, monitoring and alerting etc.; - Experience of taking a lead role, for example driving design decisions, managing stakeholders effectively, and providing technical leadership; - Working within a team to deliver software in a collaborative way, including coaching and mentoring colleagues to develop the team and contribute to a strong engineering culture
Essential: - Implementing quality-focussed development practices and testing techniques
How this role compares
We hold 797 NHS vacancies in South West that publish a salary, and their median advertised starting figure is £32,073. This role pays more than about 89% of them.
There are 11,611 NHS roles open across the UK on GovJobs right now, 1,254 of them in South West.
You have 13 days left to apply. NHS adverts we hold typically run for around 30 days, so this is a shorter window than usual.
NHS England has 32 other vacancies open on GovJobs, with a breakdown of what they pay and the kinds of roles they recruit for.
These figures are calculated from the vacancies GovJobs currently holds, not from official pay statistics. They are a guide to the market, not a valuation of this post.
How to apply
GovJobs does not take applications or send your details to the employer. Use the apply button to open the official Nhs Jobs advert, then check the employer's instructions, attachments, person specification and closing time before applying.
This listing was last checked on 5 Nov 2026, 02:06. If the official advert has changed or closed, report it and we will review the listing.
Why this listing is on GovJobs
GovJobs indexes public-sector vacancies from official sources, normalises the title, employer, location, salary and deadline, and links back to the source so you can verify the advert yourself.
The source for this role is Nhs Jobs. Applications stay on the official employer or source website, not on GovJobs.