Senior Software Engineers Ref. 3667 in Manchester

Salary: £50,354 to £60,036. This includes a basic salary, skills payment, and a concessionary payment of £2,758. The final amount depends on your skills and experience. You’ll also receive a one-off recruitment bonus of £3,500, split into two payments: £1,750 on arrival and £1,750 after successfully completing probation. In the future, there may be an opportunity to qualify for a higher skill level. Following a successful skills assessment, this could increase your salary by £9,766.

We recognise the importance of a healthy work‑life balance and offer a range of working patterns, including full‑time, part‑time, and compressed hours. Hybrid working, which refers to a combination of working on‑site and from home, may be more limited due to the nature of the work. However, some homeworking may be available depending on business needs. We also support flexible start and finish times, where possible, to help you manage your personal and professional commitments.

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.

The role involves solving mission‑critical challenges, contributing to the architecture and design of both new and existing systems, establishing and promoting best practices, and delivering high‑quality software solutions. You’ll introduce fresh ideas and innovative approaches that make a real impact at the core of our mission: keeping the UK safe, both in the real world and online. You’ll engage confidently with both technical and non‑technical stakeholders, making a positive contribution to the wider engineering community.

About you: Strategic and self‑driven, you’ll serve as a bridge between teams, communicating technical information with clarity and confidence. You’ll thrive in a fast‑paced, innovative environment where creativity is key to solving complex challenges. We welcome experienced professionals from a variety of related fields, including software engineering and security, site reliability engineering, and data engineering.

Training and development: At GCHQ, we’re committed to your growth and development. From the moment you join, you’ll receive a comprehensive induction into our organisation, which will provide insights into how we operate. 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 throughout your career. We invest in your development and adapt to the way you like to learn, providing resources for continuous learning, experimentation, and improvement.

Rewards and benefits: You’ll receive a starting salary of £50,354 to £60,036, which includes a concessionary payment of £2,758, dependent on skills and experience, and a one‑off payment of £3,500 split into two payments. Other benefits include:

• 25 days of annual leave, increasing to 30 days after 5 years’ service
• 10.5 days of public and privilege holidays
• Opportunities for recognition through our employee performance scheme
• Interest‑free season ticket loan (for parking and travel)
• Cycle to work scheme
• On‑site facilities such as a gym, restaurant, and coffee bars (available at some locations)
• Paid parental and adoption leave

Equal opportunities: At GCHQ, diversity and inclusion are critical to our mission. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including individuals from groups that are under‑represented in our workforce.

We’re Disability Confident: GCHQ is proud to have achieved Leader status within the Department for Work and Pensions’ Disability Confident scheme. As a Disability Confident Leader, we aim to ensure that a fair number of disabled applicants who meet the essential minimum criteria for this position will be offered an interview.

What to expect: Our recruitment process is fair, transparent, and based on merit. Here is a brief overview of each stage:

• Application form sift
• Technical and competency‑based interview, including a presentation
• If successful, you’ll receive a conditional offer of employment, subject to vetting

Please note you must successfully pass each stage of the process to progress to the next. Your application may take around 6 to 9 months to process, including vetting.

Before you apply: To work at GCHQ, you must be a British citizen or hold dual British nationality. This role requires the highest level of security clearance, known as Developed Vetting (DV).

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.

Our technologists and engineers use sophisticated software, hardware and brand‑new IT systems to help other teams carry out their operations. We’re specialists across cyber security risk, complex data analysis and programmes and across platforms, networks and infrastructure.