Mid-level WordPress Developer in Manchester

We’re looking for a mid-level WordPress Developer with strong PHP to build, extend and look after WordPress and some WooCommerce sites for our clients. You’ll work on our own framework, alongside our development team and project managers, and take work from brief through to live release.

You’ll split your time between new builds and live client sites: new features, fixes, updates and releases. So you’ll be as comfortable picking up existing code as starting something fresh.

Most of our sites are WordPress and WooCommerce, built on our own framework using Composer (Bedrock), Twig (Timber) and ACF blocks, with Tailwind on the front end. Code lives in Bitbucket, deploys go through Bitbucket Pipelines, and sites are hosted on cPanel, mostly behind Cloudflare.

We don’t expect long hours or weekends. We want focus, skill, and commitment during your working day.

Key Responsibilities

• Build custom WordPress themes and ACF blocks on our framework, from design or brief to finished site.
• Build and extend WooCommerce stores, from product setup and checkout changes to custom functionality.
• Write clean, maintainable PHP that follows WordPress coding standards, using hooks, filters, custom post types and taxonomies.
• Debug and fix issues on live client sites, in your own code and in code you’ve inherited.

Releasing & Looking After Sites

• Manage your work in Git: branching, committing, pull requests and code review.
• Release changes from staging to live through Bitbucket Pipelines, and check each release once it’s out.
• Keep client sites updated, secure and fast, including WordPress, plugin and PHP updates and Cloudflare caching.

Working With the Team

• Estimate and scope your own work accurately from a brief.
• Communicate progress clearly with project managers, and with clients when needed.
• Peer review your colleagues’ code.

What Success Looks Like

In this role, success means client sites are built, released and looked after reliably, with little oversight. It also means project managers can trust your estimates, releases go out cleanly, and live sites stay updated, secure and fast.

After 3 Months

• Confident with our framework, stack and release process.
• Delivering features and fixes on live client sites.
• Releasing your own work from staging to live through Bitbucket Pipelines.
• Keeping project managers clearly updated on progress.

After 6 Months

• Owning builds end to end, from brief to live release.
• Scoping and estimating your own work accurately.
• Peer reviewing colleagues’ code.
• Looking after updates, security and performance across client sites.

After 12 Months

• A trusted developer who ships reliably with little oversight.
• Improving our framework, processes and documentation.
• Sharing AI-assisted workflows and practices with the wider team.
• Communicating confidently with clients when needed.

Required Skills & Experience

• Strong PHP, shown in commercial WordPress work such as custom themes or plugins.
• Solid commercial experience building and maintaining WordPress and WooCommerce sites.
• Comfortable with Git: branching, merging and pull requests.
• Experience releasing changes from staging to live.
• Regular use of AI coding tools in your work (we use Claude Code, but any is fine).
• Over 3 years’ experience delivering commercially live websites, with examples you can show us.

Desirable Skills & Experience

• Composer-managed WordPress (Bedrock).
• Twig and Timber.
• ACF Pro, especially ACF blocks.
• Tailwind CSS.
• Cloudflare.
• cPanel/WHM.
• Docker.
• Exposure to Shopify.

We’ll get you up to speed on anything you haven’t used.

What Makes a Soaperstar?

At Soap, we care about people who take ownership, communicate clearly and want to do great work without ego.

You’ll fit in well if you:

• Take responsibility for your area and see work through.
• Are mindful of commercial realities, like budget, time, and effort vs impact.
• Communicate clearly with clients and colleagues, even when the message is complex.
• Follow processes and documentation so we can scale quality.
• Tackle problems logically and stay engaged when things get tricky.
• Make decisions with evidence and testing wherever possible.
• Are curious about AI-assisted workflows and practical ways to improve output.
• Show up as a strong teammate and represent the agency well.

Salary & Benefits

• Salary: £33,000 to £38,500 depending on experience.
• Full-time, permanent, with a 3-month probation period.
• Fully remote role with quarterly in-person socials.
• Access to office and meeting spaces in Manchester and Preston.
• Structured and supported personal development time every Friday.
• Provision for training, equipment and wellbeing.
• Access to the Health Assured Employee Assistance Programme (EAP).
• Occupational sick pay scheme.
• Birthday off and an extra day off for every year of service.
• Engaged management team and consistent 8+ NPS.

How to Apply

Apply through the link and send us your CV. If you have a site you’ve built, or code on GitHub or Bitbucket you’re happy to share, add a link. We’d love to see your work.

After a first interview, we’ll send you a short take-home task (around 2 hours) to complete within 5 working days. At a second interview, you’ll talk us through your code and the decisions you made. If you need any adjustments, just let us know.