Salary: £48,557 - £57,704, dependent on experience and including a basic salary and skills payment. Plus, you’ll receive a one-off recruitment bonus of £3,500 (£1,750 on arrival and £1,750 on successful completion of probation). There’s also the option to qualify for an increased skills payment of up to £19,113 once in-post, following a successful skills assessment.
Flexible Working: We recognise the importance of a healthy work-life balance and offer full-time, part-time, and compressed hours. While hybrid working can be more restricted, due to the nature of the work, some home working may be available depending on business needs.
Find out more about flexible working on our website.
About Us
GCHQ is an intelligence, cyber and security agency with a mission to keep the UK safe. We use cutting-edge technology, ingenuity, and partnerships to identify, analyse and disrupt threats. Working with our intelligence partners MI5 and MI6, we protect the UK from terrorism, cyber-attacks, and espionage. At GCHQ you’ll do varied and fascinating work in a supportive and inclusive environment that puts the emphasis on teamwork.
The Role
As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll play a pivotal role in finding solutions to mission-critical problems. You’ll contribute to the architecture and design of new and existing systems, establish best working practices, and deliver high-quality software products. With your knowledge of various software engineering methodologies, you’ll bring fresh ideas and approaches that have a real impact at the heart of our mission to keep the UK safe in the real world, and online.
This is a practical role with plenty of opportunities to develop yourself and others. You might be reviewing pull requests, defining review, branching, and deployment strategies, or working with a range of software engineering frameworks. You operate at a deep technical level, leveraging your familiarity with languages such as JavaScript, Java, C++, Node, Python, Rust, Go, and .NET.
Importantly, you’ll bring a genuine excitement for discovering new software engineering techniques. You are part of a wider network of peers keen to share experiences, collaborate on projects, and learn from each other. With your experience, you set the standard, share innovative ways of working, and identify new priorities. You might lead and mentor a team or be the technical expert within a functioning team, bringing your experience with a range of software engineering methodologies to deliver innovative solutions. You engage with both technical and non-technical customers and have a real, positive influence on the wider engineering community.
About You
As a Senior Software Engineer, you bring knowledge of modern software engineering languages and frameworks such as C++, Golang, Java, JavaScript, .NET, Node, Python, Rust, and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP). Additionally, you have experience leading Agile project teams and evaluating customer business requirements. Self-motivated and strategic, you act as a bridge between teams and communicate technical information clearly and with confidence.
We welcome experienced professionals from related fields, including software engineering, cloud engineering and security, UX, site reliability engineering, front-end design, Agile, solution architecture, data engineering, or machine learning operations. You thrive in environments where creativity and innovation are necessary to solve unprecedented problems. Your work will involve establishing best working practices, delivering high-quality software products, mentoring other colleagues, and staying updated on new and emerging technologies to lead their adoption.
Training and Development
At GCHQ, we embrace a growth mindset. We’re committed to your continuing development and offer tailored support to complement your preferred learning style.
You’ll be encouraged to dedicate up to 30% of your time to development, innovation, and experimentation. From day one, you’ll have access to mentors and subject matter experts to help you settle into the role, and you can continue to have a mentor for as little or as long as you choose throughout your career.
From books, online courses, and conferences to hands-on projects supported by our team, we’ll provide the resources you need. We’ll even provide funding towards formal qualifications. You’ll have access to learning and development opportunities tailored to your role, covering a multitude of software disciplines including Front-End Design, Site Reliability Engineering, Data Engineering, Solution Architecture, Machine Learning Operations, UX, Agile, Cloud Engineering & Security. Additionally, we offer clear career progression paths to help you achieve your professional goals and advance within the organisation.
Potential training courses could include:
- AWS Certified Developer – Associate/Professional/AWS Certified Solution Architect – Associate/Professional
- Certified SCRUM Master
- Microservices Architecture Training
- Advanced/Software Engineering Patterns
- Advanced Linux & CLI
- User Experience
- Internal Training – for example Team Leadership (difficult conversations, leading a team etc.)
- Cloud Academy / Pluralsight / O'Reilly Subscription
Our culture embraces a growth mindset, equality, and encourages teams and leaders to bring their best every day. Join us and help shape the future of national security while growing your expertise in an environment that supports and values you.
Plus, as you gain experience and further your knowledge, you’ll have opportunities for skill reviews that can lead to recognised additional skills payments.
Rewards and Benefits
You’ll receive a starting salary of £48,557 - £57,704, dependent on skills and experience, with an additional one-off recruitment bonus of £3,500, plus other benefits including:
- 25 days annual leave automatically, rising to 30 days after 5 years' service, and an additional 10.5 days of public and privilege holidays.
- Opportunities to be recognised through our employee performance scheme.
- Interest-free season ticket loan (parking and travel).
- Excellent pension scheme.
- Cycle to work scheme.
- Facilities such as a gym and restaurant, and on-site coffee bars (at some locations).
- Paid parental and adoption leave.
Equal Opportunities
At GCHQ diversity and inclusion are critical to our mission. To protect the UK, we need a truly diverse workforce that reflects the society we serve. This includes diversity in every sense of the word: those with different backgrounds, ages, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ways of thinking, and those with disabilities or neurodivergent conditions. We therefore welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including those from groups that are under-represented, in our workforce such as women, those from an ethnic minority background, people with disabilities, and those from low socio-economic backgrounds.
Find out more about our culture, working environment, and diversity on our website:
https://www.gchq-careers.co.uk/life-at-gchq/diversity-inclusion.html
We’re Disability Confident
GCHQ is proud to have achieved Leader status within the DWP’s Disability Confident scheme. This is aimed at encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain, and develop disabled people. As a Disability Confident employer, we aim to offer a fair and proportionate number of person-to-person interviews to any candidate who self-identifies as disabled and meets the essential criteria for the role. This is our “Offer of Interview” (OOI). To secure an interview for this vacancy, the essential criteria (in order of application process) are:
- You can evidence where you’ve taken ownership of a technical project or piece of work.
- Ability to understand several modern languages/frameworks, such as C++, Golang, Java, JavaScript, .Net, Node, Python, Rust.
- Experience of working in an Agile Technical Project team.
- Provide evidence of competency as a Software Engineer.
What to Expect
Our recruitment process is fair, transparent, and based on merit. Here is a brief overview of each stage, in order:
- Application form sift.
- Technical and competency-based interview, including a presentation.
If successful, you will receive a conditional offer of employment, subject to vetting. Please note, you must successfully pass each stage of the process in order to progress to the next. Your application may take around 6 - 9 months to process, including vetting, so we advise you to continue any current employment until you have received your final job offer.
Before You Apply
To work at GCHQ, you need to be a British citizen or hold dual British nationality. You can read our full eligibility criteria here.
This role requires the highest security clearance, known as Developed Vetting (DV). It’s something everyone in the UK Intelligence Community undertakes. You can find out more about the vetting process here.
Please note we have a strict drugs policy, so once you start your application, you can’t take any recreational drugs, and you’ll need to declare your previous drug usage at the relevant stage.
Before you apply, we advise you to consider setting up a separate email address for your contact with us, to ensure your personal and application correspondence remain separate. Try to avoid having identifying features in your email address, such as your first and/or surname and date of birth. This is good practice and will help you to manage your application with us more securely.
These roles are based in Manchester, Greater Manchester or Samlesbury, with the Greater Manchester building located just a 30-minute drive from the city centre, so you’ll need to live within a commutable distance. Please consider any financial implications and practicalities before submitting an application.
Please note, you should only launch your application from within the UK. If you are based overseas, you should wait until you visit the UK to launch an application. Applying from outside the UK will impact our ability to progress your application.
Right to Withdraw Statement:
Please be aware that we reserve the right to bring forward the closing date for this role from the original closing date once a certain number of applications have been received. Please be mindful of this and submit your application at your earliest convenience to avoid disappointment.