Employer NICE – The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Employer type NHS Site 3rd Floor Town Manchester Salary £66,582 – £77,368 This role qualifies for a 12,5% per annum R&R Salary period Yearly Closing 11/06/2026 23:59
Principal Engineer
NHS AfC: Band 8b
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance and advice on promoting high quality health, public health and social care.
As an equal opportunities employer we are committed to creating a inclusive environment and welcome everyone from all backgrounds to apply so we can continue to create a workforce which is representative of the communities we serve.
If you are suitably qualified and have an interest in remote, hybrid, full time or part time working we encourage you to get in touch as we are happy to discuss potential flexible working opportunities.
We have modern offices in Manchester city centre and Stratford, London. Please take into consideration that you may be required to commute to one of our offices for business purposes if necessary.
Job overview
This role qualifies for a 12.5% per annum recruitment and retention payment, in addition to the Band 8B base salary.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is seeking a Principal Engineer to provide senior leadership across the engineering, deployment, and production operation of digital applications and services.
This is a strategic role focused on ensuring services are technically robust and designed to meet real user needs. You will lead the engineering of modern, high-quality live services, applying best practice in product development and user-centred design from early discovery and prototyping through to secure, scalable, and maintainable production environments.
Working across the full product lifecycle, you will partner with NICE Business Service Owners, designers, and stakeholders to translate user needs, service outcomes, and policy intent into accessible, reliable, and well-engineered digital services. You will act as a senior technical authority, ensuring that user-centred design is realised through sound engineering decisions and that services meet recognised standards for accessibility, usability, and performance.
You will provide leadership across multiple teams, setting engineering and operational standards aligned to the GDS Service Standard, accessibility requirements, and DevOps best practice. You will ensure effective technical governance and support senior engineers to deliver consistently high-quality outcomes.
Main duties of the job
A key part of the role is ensuring innovation and emerging technologies are adopted in a responsible, user-focused way, delivering measurable improvements to live services.
Reporting to the Associate Director of Engineering, you will lead technical direction across one or more teams and provide oversight across multiple programmes. You will balance hands on technical expertise with strategic leadership, governance and people management.
• Leading engineering delivery across large or complex digital services, ensuring successful transition from prototype to production• Owning and assuring technical decision making, governance and delivery processes across the product lifecycle• Setting and maintaining engineering standards aligned to GDS Service Standard, accessibility, security and DevOps best practice• Partnering with product and design leads to translate user centred design into robust, scalable digital services• Providing leadership across agile delivery, DevOps and continuous improvement practices• Managing and developing senior technical staff, building capability and fostering a high performing, inclusive culture• Identifying, assessing and championing the responsible adoption of emerging technologies (including AI) where they add value to live services
Working for our organisation
The Engineering team at NICE designs, builds, and runs the digital services that underpin nationally relied upon health and care guidance used by millions of people.The team creates secure, reliable software that supports both internal guidance production and public-facing services such as the NICE website, BNF, and Clinical Knowledge Summaries.Engineers work collaboratively in multidisciplinary teams, applying DevOps and secure by design principles to continuously improve live services and deliver meaningful digital outcomes.We can offer you a great place to work with good benefits, flexible working, and a supportive, friendly, and inclusive environment.
We are passionate and proud of the work we do and the impact we make. NICE offer:
- Generous NHS Pension – Secure your future with one of the most rewarding pension schemes in the UK
- Flexible working – Enjoy a healthy work-life balance with options like remote working, compressed hours and flexible start/finish times
- Exclusive discounts – Save on shopping, dining and more with a Blue Light CardTime to recharge – Start with 27 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays
- Inclusive staff networks – Join supportive communities like Women in NICE, Race Equality Network, Disability Advocacy and NICE and Proud – we celebrate diversity
- Tailored development – Grow your career with personalised learning and development opportunities
If you feel this is the type of environment you will enjoy working in, apply today!
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
To be considered for this role, you should be able to particularly demonstrate the person specification criteria in the job advert in your application. However, applicants should be able to demonstrate all essential criteria through the entirety of the recruitment process to be considered for the job. Please see job description attached for full list of responsibilities.
Please note that this role may not be eligible for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker route. Please refer to the Direct Gov website for further information regarding eligibility.
Please note this vacancy may be closed early if sufficient suitable applications are received so we encourage an early application.
Person specification
Experience
- Significant experience leading delivery of complex digital products and services through the full delivery lifecycle
Experience
- Proven ability to provide senior technical leadership while working closely with product and design disciplines
Experience
- Experience setting and assuring technical standards across multiple teams or services
Skills/Knowledge
- Excellent stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to influence at senior levels
Skills/Knowledge
- Strong people leadership skills, including managing and developing senior technical professionals
Skills/Knowledge
- Highly skilled in modern software engineering, cloud platforms, DevOps and agile delivery
Important – Due to NICE’s use of anonymised recruitment practices we ask all candidates not to include any personal details within their application. Please ensure you provide sufficient detail in the supporting information section to allow our team to make an informed judgement about your suitability for this role at this stage. CV’s will not be considered.
We reserve the right to close any vacancies from further submissions when we have received sufficient applications from which to make a shortlist. Please ensure you apply without delay if you wish to be considered for this role.
Candidates must ensure that all information provided in their application is factually accurate. Any examples provided must be taken from personal experience. NICE abides by honesty and integrity as part of its organisational values, if evidence of plagiarism is found, applications may be withdrawn.
By submitting an application, you agree that it may be rejected or subject to disciplinary action if evidence of plagiarism is detected. Examples of plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.
Please contact resourcing@nice.org.uk if you wish to discuss any additional needs or reasonable adjustments which may support you with your application and/or at interview.
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