Senior Applications Engineer (Chelmsford/North Kent)

Location of Role: Chelmsford / North Kent

Advert Closing Date: 22/04/2026

Starting Salary: £41,856.00 (pro-rata for part-time vacancies)

Part/Full Time: Full Time

Contract Type: Permanent

Working Pattern: Mon-Fri

Weekend/Evening Working: Yes

We are seeking a new Senior Applications Engineer to join our Commercial Applications team in IT Services. The Commercial Applications team are responsible for the build, implementation and support of a significant number of systems and services across a wide range of technologies. This post requires a professional approach to learning new technologies and systems as our engineers are skilled at proactively searching for the information they need to diagnose faults reported on a vast range of applications across Essex Police, Kent Police and Kent Fire Control Room.

Key Responsibilities

• Supporting IT programme delivery of new systems and interfaces.
• Developing and updating system support documentation.
• Patching and upgrades of systems.
• Providing 2nd and 3rd line support to a variety of corporate applications and their interfaces, both cloud and 'on-premise', ensuring service delivery is aligned to ITIL.
• Updating and managing workload through our IT Service Management tool, ensuring high quality input that aids resolution understanding and future critical incident management.
• Providing technical advice and guidance to a range of complex or escalated technical issues; working in a multiple discipline team, alone, or through managing a third party supplier.
• Providing on-call services within an out-of-hours support rota.

Required Skills & Experience

• 2 to 3 years working as a technical practitioner in an IT support or programme environment.
• A high standard of Customer Service, engaging with system users across their varying needs and under duress, with the ability to speak confidently on technical topics without overusing jargon between police staff, officers, and fellow IT colleagues.
• A good knowledge and experience of ITIL processes; able to demonstrate high standards of record keeping, incident, change and problem management, as well as efficiently documenting new fixes to maintain and consolidate the team's pool of knowledge.
• Thorough knowledge and understanding of the Enterprise application architecture, including the framework and principles on which servers, networks and operating systems are based (e.g., Windows Server, UNIX, LINUX, Oracle, SQL-Server, TCP/IP, etc.).
• Proficiency in everyday desktop software, specific application systems and familiarity with information retrieval tools.

A Senior Applications Engineer sits in our Commercial Applications Team and reports to a Commercial Applications Team Leader. It is a team that provides support and development services for Force systems. Our IT Department has a wide and varied range of responsibilities from 1st line service desk, 2nd line technical support to 3rd line specialist technical architect/design. IT is also responsible for IT Security management, Service Management, Business Support and Project Management that maintain and continuously improve critical services, software, platforms and hardware required throughout the full IT lifecycle. This underpins the delivery of secure and timely 24/7 operations for approximately 13,000 users across 130+ geographical locations supporting over 14,000 computers including hosted datacentres together with the underlying network, physical and virtual (including cloud services) IT infrastructure.

Benefits

• Training and professional development opportunities
• Local Government Pension Scheme
• 26 days Annual Leave increasing to 29 days after 5 years employment.
• Flexible working dependant on duties
• On-site fitness centre and canteen (location dependent)
• Collaborative and supportive work environment.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Wellness programmes
• Blue light Discount Card
• Opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to public safety and community well-being.

This role is suitable for part time/job share workers. For more information about the role please contact john.knowles@essex.police.uk. Kent Police offer incremental increases within this salary band, therefore the salary for this position will rise to a maximum of £47,505.00. For the full Kent job description please click here. For the full Essex description please click here. Kent Police and Essex Police have separate salary grading systems; therefore the salary for this position will be dependent on which home office force you are appointed to. This will be discussed with the successful applicant before a final offer is made. All of our posts require a level of vetting and security clearance. During the recruitment process you will be sent vetting information forms to complete. Essex Police is a Disability Confident Leader, we:

• Have subjected our Disability Confident self-assessment to external challenge and validation.
• Are taking an active leadership role in encouraging and helping other employers on their journey to becoming Disability Confident.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion are central to the values of our organisation. At Essex Police we value and embrace the unique experiences, identities and abilities that each of us brings to our roles. We strive to empower everyone to bring their authentic self openly and safely to work. Through the dedicated commitment of our support networks, DE&I team and wider HR departments, we are on a journey to embed our DE&I commitments, ensuring Essex Police is an employer of choice where everyone feels included. Essex Police and Kent Police are an equal opportunities employer. Communications may be recorded for monitoring purposes.