Head of DevOps

Head of DevOps

Full-Time 120000 - 135000 £ / year (est.) Home office (partial)
Prism Digital

At a Glance

  • Tasks: Lead a 40-strong DevOps team, driving innovation and modernisation in a UK insurer.
  • Company: Established UK insurer investing in DevOps and automation.
  • Benefits: Competitive salary, up to 20% bonus, hybrid work, and strong corporate benefits.
  • Other info: Opportunity for significant impact and career growth in a supportive culture.
  • Why this job: Shape the future of technology delivery in a dynamic, regulated environment.
  • Qualifications: 10+ years in DevOps, leadership experience, and knowledge of Infrastructure as Code.

The predicted salary is between 120000 - 135000 £ per year.

Salary: £120,000 to £135,000, plus up to 20% annual bonus and a strong corporate benefits package.

Location: London, hybrid (2 to 3 days in the office), plus roughly a day a fortnight at their IT hub in Sussex.

You’ll run the DevOps and automation function that keeps a UK insurer’s technology delivery moving, a team of around 40 people the business treats as its engine room. Three team leads report to you across the UK and India, looking after the DevOps engineers embedded in the development squads, while four automation product owners cover areas like observability and platform engineering.

This is a leadership seat, focused on how the team is structured, deployed and grown as the business changes, so your time goes on people, delivery and direction rather than the pipelines themselves. The company is a long-established UK insurer with thousands of staff, a few years into a serious push on DevOps and automation. Around 70% of the estate is still legacy technology, so there’s plenty to modernise. The function supports roughly 300 developers and a test team of about 70, with DevOps engineers currently deployed out to each development team to run their pipelines. It’s a regulated environment (FCA), so governance and release reliability count for as much as speed.

They want someone who has led DevOps inside an end-user organisation rather than a career built inside an offshore outsourcer, and who understands DevOps delivered alongside developers, not pure cloud or infrastructure work. If that’s you, this is a broad, senior remit at a business that’s investing properly in the area.

What They’re Looking For:

  • Leadership of a sizeable DevOps function spread across the UK and offshore India
  • DevOps engineering delivered inside development teams, rather than pure cloud or infrastructure DevOps
  • An enterprise or in-house background, not a career built inside an offshore outsourcer
  • Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
  • Third-party and vendor management
  • 10+ years across DevOps and tooling or automation

What You’ll Work With:

  • Ansible
  • Self-service environment provisioning
  • PaaS and IaaS platforms
  • CI/CD governance and release management
  • A large legacy estate part-way through modernisation
  • UK and India engineering teams plus offshore delivery partners

Nice to Haves:

  • Insurance, banking or other regulated-sector experience
  • ITIL or Agile certifications
  • Experience in large, matrix-managed global organisations

Why Join?

You’ll own a 40-person function end to end, with a budget of around £1 to £1.5m and real say over how the operating model develops as the business modernises. The brief is wide: strategy and roadmap, day-to-day delivery, major programme work, vendor management and budget.

Head of DevOps employer: Prism Digital

Prism Digital is an exceptional employer that values innovation and collaboration, offering a dynamic remote work environment where you can thrive as a WordPress Developer. With a strong focus on employee growth, we provide opportunities for skill enhancement and career advancement while working on a high-traffic platform that reaches millions. Join us to be part of a supportive team that encourages creativity and values your contributions to our success.

Prism Digital

Contact Details:

Prism Digital Recruitment Team

We think you need these skills to ace Head of DevOps

Leadership
DevOps Engineering
Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
CI/CD Governance
Release Management
Vendor Management
Ansible