Senior WordPress Engineer – Headless (Manchester)

Senior WordPress Engineer – HeadlessLocation: Manchester (Hybrid, occasional office visits, once a month)Full-time, Permanent£60,000 – £65,000I\’m currently working with a leading digital media group that\’s investing heavily in their web platform and they’re looking for a Senior WordPress Engineer with serious backend skills, particularly in headless WordPress at scale.This is a genuinely exciting opportunity to get stuck into building out high-traffic, content-heavy sites that are powered by clean, scalable architecture and modern development practices. It’s not your average WordPress gig, think API-first, JAMstack, CI/CD pipelines, and containerised environments – all the good stuff.You\’ll be part of a growing, forward-thinking team where engineering standards are high, DevOps is a given, and everything is built with performance and security front of mind. This is a hands-on, code-focused role where your experience with custom plugins, GraphQL, REST APIs, and advanced PHP will be key to shaping robust, reusable services across multiple sites and teams.There’s also a strong collaborative element here, you\’ll be working closely with other engineers across the UK and Europe as they roll out the next generation of their platform.What you’ll need to bring:Strong experience in headless WordPress development (enterprise-level experience is ideal)Deep PHP knowledge (7/8) and understanding of the WordPress coreHands-on experience creating and integrating with REST APIs and WPGraphQLCustom theme/plugin development optimised for headless useACF, CPTs, taxonomies – you know the drillSecure API handling (OAuth, JWT) and best practices in authenticationSolid grasp of performance optimisation – query tuning, caching, CDN strategiesFamiliarity with Docker, Git, and modern CI/CD pipelinesConfidence in delivering clean, frontend-ready APIs (React, Next.js or similar)JAMstack know-how and a passion for scalable, API-first designLocation & Working Setup:The team is mainly based in London, Peterborough or Manchester, but this role is open to hybrid/remote working, with a touchpoint in the office around once every 4–6 weeks.If you\’re an experienced WordPress engineer who’s passionate about headless builds, modern architecture, and writing clean, reliable code, this could be a great fit.