Chief Engineer SC cleared

Chief Engineer (SC Cleared or higher) - Outside IR35

Location: Hybrid (3 Days Onsite per Week)
Rate: Up to £750 per day Outside IR35
Clearance: Active SC or DV Clearance Required

Overview

We're seeking an experienced Chief Engineer to provide technical leadership across complex government and secure-sector programmes. You'll be responsible for setting engineering standards, driving technical excellence, and ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, and aligned with delivery objectives across multiple teams.

This role combines engineering leadership, architecture assurance, and hands-on technical guidance within a highly secure environment.

Responsibilities

• Define and govern engineering standards, best practices, and technical principles across delivery teams.
• Drive improvements in software engineering, infrastructure, cloud, and DevOps capabilities.
• Provide technical assurance for architecture, solution design, and implementation activities.
• Mentor engineers and architects, promoting engineering excellence and continuous improvement.
• Identify and resolve technical delivery challenges, improving quality, consistency, and developer experience.
• Act as a senior escalation point for complex engineering and architectural issues.
• Ensure solutions comply with security, operational, and regulatory requirements.
• Influence technology strategy, roadmaps, and long-term engineering decisions.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Proven experience operating as a Chief Engineer, Principal Engineer, Lead Engineer, Technical Design Authority, or similar senior technical leadership role.
• Strong knowledge of modern engineering practices, cloud-native architectures, and distributed systems.
• Experience establishing engineering standards and governance across multiple teams.
• Demonstrable experience delivering solutions within secure, regulated, or government environments.
• Strong stakeholder engagement skills with the ability to influence across engineering, architecture, security, and delivery functions.

Technical Environment

Cloud & Infrastructure

• Azure, AWS, Private Cloud, Virtualised Infrastructure
• Enterprise Networking, VPNs, Firewalls, Identity & Access Management

Security & Compliance

• Secure-by-Design Principles
• Zero Trust Architecture
• ISO 27001
• NIST
• Cyber Essentials Plus

DevOps & Platform Engineering

• Terraform, ARM, CloudFormation
• Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, GitLab, Jenkins
• Docker, Kubernetes
• CI/CD and Infrastructure as Code

Software Engineering

• APIs and Integration Patterns
• Microservices
• Distributed Systems
• Event-Driven Architectures

Desirable

• Defence, Government, National Security, or Critical National Infrastructure experience.
• Platform Engineering and Developer Experience exposure.
• Experience leading engineering transformation programmes.
• Previous involvement in Technical Design Authority (TDA) or Design Authority functions.
• Existing DV Clearance.

Clearance Requirements

Candidates must hold active SC Clearance and be eligible to work within secure government environments. DV-cleared candidates will be highly desirable.

Disclaimer
Notwithstanding any guidelines given to level of experience sought, we will consider candidates from outside this range if they can demonstrate the necessary competencies.
Square One is acting as both an employment agency and an employment business, and is an equal opportunities recruitment business. Square One embraces diversity and will treat everyone equally. Please see our website for our full diversity statement.