Lead Developer in Chelmsford, United Kingdom

Lead Developer

Fixed Term, 12 months

Full Time, 37 hours per week

£60,724 to £71,440 per annum

Location: Chelmsford

Closing Date: 26th October 2026

Please note that visa sponsorship is not available for this role. Applicants must have a current, unrestricted right to work in the UK.

Essex County Council is delivering an ambitious transformation to become a leading digital council by 2030, with excellent customer service enabled through modern technology and service design.

The Role

The Lead Developer is a newly created role within Essex Digital Service, established to define and deliver the Council’s development strategy, build internal engineering capability, and enable scalable delivery in support of the Resident Experience Programme. Working on a range of transformational projects, the successful candidate will play a key role in improving how residents interact with the Council while shaping the future direction of the Council’s digital services.

The postholder will provide technical leadership across product teams, setting the technical direction for the Council’s new low-code platform and ensuring software solutions are designed and delivered securely, sustainably, and in line with user needs, organisational priorities, and long-term platform strategy.

As a senior technical leader, the Lead Developer will influence wider digital and technology investment decisions through technical assurance and strategic advice, supporting the Assistant Director for Product & Delivery with technical investment decisions and budgetary responsibilities of up to £500,000.

The role will directly manage a team of developers and be responsible for building and strengthening engineering capability across Essex Digital Service. With significant influence across major transformation programmes, the postholder will help shape council-wide engineering standards, practices, and technical capability.

To read more about our business area, please visit: Corporate Services

Accountabilities

• Develop and deliver the Essex Digital Service development strategy, aligning engineering capabilities with product, platform and architectural priorities to enable the delivery of secure and user-centred digital services.
• Establish and maintain engineering standards, design patterns and ways of working to promote consistency, enable reuse of common components, and accelerate the adoption of platform-based delivery approaches.
• Provide technical leadership across strategic programmes in order to ensure that solutions are scalable, sustainable and aligned to organisational outcomes.
• Lead the design, development and continuous improvement of software, services, APIs and integrations in order to deliver reliable, high-performing and maintainable digital products.
• Collaborate with Product and Delivery Managers to align engineering decisions with user needs, service priorities and measurable programme outcomes
• Lead, mentor and develop engineering teams to build capability, foster professional growth and create a high-performing engineering culture.
• Set and assure coding, testing, accessibility and service quality standards to improve delivery confidence, reduce technical debt and ensure compliance.
• Drive the adoption of modern engineering practices, including DevOps, CI/CD, automation and cloud-native approaches, to increase delivery speed, quality and resilience.
• Identify, manage and mitigate technical risks while working with internal stakeholders and suppliers to deliver secure, coherent and cost-effective digital solutions.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Degree-level qualification, or equivalent professional experience, supported by evidence of continuous professional development and demonstrated capability aligned to SFIA Level 6 software engineering leadership.
• Significant experience delivering digital services in complex organisations.
• Proven experience leading engineering teams and building capability.
• Strong experience of Agile delivery in complex environments.
• Expertise in modern programming languages, software design and architecture.
• Experience defining engineering standards and development strategies.
• Provides evidence of applying Government Service Standards, accessibility best practice, and information governance policies, with no significant compliance breaches.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

Why Essex?

As one of the largest and most dynamic UK local authorities, Essex offers a stimulating public service environment. Covering over 1,420 square miles and serving 1.8 million residents, we’re committed to transformational change and delivering better quality at lower cost. Recognised in the top three of the latest IMPOWER index for productivity, we ensure everyone matters in  Everyone's Essex . With flexible working options and a focus on innovation, whether you are looking to develop your career or contribute to the local community, Essex is the ideal place for you. 

In March 2026, Greater Essex was accepted on to the devolution priority programme, where we will work towards establishing a Mayoral Combined County Authority. You can read more about these changes, and what this may mean for this role, on our careers site .

Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We’re committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Please speak to our Recruiters if you require any reasonable adjustments during the process. We’re also committed to interview all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.

Once you’ve secured your role within Essex County Council you will receive many great employee benefits, including support for unpaid carers and flexible working arrangements to accommodate their needs.

At Essex County Council, we value integrity and ethical behaviour. We kindly ask that you embrace our code of conduct and the Nolan principles , including throughout the recruitment process. Your commitment to these standards helps us maintain a positive and respectful workplace for everyone.

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

If you would like to be kept up to date on other relevant opportunities, blogs, news, events and industry related news at Essex County Council, please join  The Essex Talent Community

If you have queries or require anything further, please email [email protected]

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