Join to apply for the Consultant Systems Engineer role at NHS England

Digital delivery is a cornerstone of the NHS's 10-year plan, aiming to revolutionise healthcare. Digital transformation is expected to improve patient outcomes and alleviate the burden on healthcare professionals by reducing paperwork and enabling personalised care.

We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced systems engineer to join our Digital Citizen Portfolio as Head of Systems Engineering. The successful candidate will primarily focus on leading the engineering for the NHS app, however they will also have responsibility for other parts of the digital citizen national channels which includes the NHS.uk website. NHS.uk is a widely used medical resource for providing guidance to citizens across the UK.

The NHS App and NHS.uk website services will be pivotal in the delivery of the NHS 10-year plan. The NHS App is used by millions of citizens daily and increasingly will put citizens in control of their own health and care, and the health and care of those they care for. The App connects citizens to health prevention services and increases their skills confidence knowledge and capacity for self-advocacy. It is set to become the complete digital front door to the NHS, enabling patients to book appointments, manage medications, and access their medical records.

The NHS App is a mobile-native app built with Swift and Kotlin. Some other technologies used in this team include Azure, Terraform, and C# for the backend services used by the mobile app.

As a Head of Systems Engineering your role will include:

• Technical leadership and delivery of national, highly available mobile apps and distributed systems, adhering to NHS England’s engineering principles
• Working with key internal and external partners and stakeholders to develop the architecture and design of mobile apps and systems
• Ensuring continued availability, resilience, and cost effectiveness of existing mobile apps and systems
• Maintaining service security, providing security controls for large volumes of highly sensitive data
• Building and leading high-performing teams (a multi-team structure comprising of 100+ engineers) based on a culture of collaboration, and driving continuous improvement through Agile, Lean and DevOps delivery
• Mentoring and coaching staff in your team
• Engaging in peer-to-peer collaboration to solve engineering problems and drive-up organisation-wide engineering standards. This may include forming & leading communities of practice, etc.
• Working with peers to define the organisation’s engineering strategy, with particular focus on defining mobile app development standards, and growing mobile app development communities of practice
• Presenting highly technical and complex information to non-technical audiences
• Acting as Subject Matter Expert for systems design, delivery, and operation, including with external suppliers/partners

Our work supports the NHS to deliver high quality services for patients and best value for taxpayers.

Our staff bring expertise across hundreds of specialisms — including clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial — enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.

We Lead The NHS In England By

• Enabling local systems and providers to improve the health of their people and patients and reduce health inequalities
• Making the NHS a great place to work, where our people can make a difference and achieve their potential
• Working collaboratively to ensure our healthcare workforce has the right knowledge, skills, values and behaviours to deliver accessible, compassionate care
• Optimising the use of digital technology, research, and innovation
• Delivering value for money

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 recruitment process.

For further details / informal visits contact: Name: Andrew Blundell
Job title: Consultant Systems Engineer
Email address: england.engineering@nhs.net

Seniority level

• Director

Employment type

• Full-time

Job function

• Information Technology

Industries

• Hospitals and Health Care

Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at NHS England by 2x