Senior Frontend Developer – Digital Archiving Access Team
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Summary
Senior frontend developer at The National Archives (UK government body) building and operating public digital-records services: Access Your Records and Find Case Law. Day to day you own server-side rendered, WCAG 2.2 AA accessible frontends, run production services, mentor developers, and set frontend standards using HTML, CSS/Sass and JavaScript, with Python (Django/Flask) a plus.
- Job grade: Senior Executive Officer
- Contract type: Permanent
- Business area: TNA - Digital - Digital Archiving
- Type of role: Digital
- Working pattern: Full-time
- Number of jobs available: 1
Location
London, London (region), TW9 4DU
About the job
Job summary
Help people find the evidence they need.
Join The National Archives’ Digital Archiving team to build and run services that open government and court records for everyone. Our Access to Digital Records products increase transparency and support open justice, while setting best practice for access to digital records.
What you’ll work on:
• Access Your Records (AYR) – secure, self service access for government departments to born digital records transferred to The National Archives (currently in private Beta).
• Find Case Law (FCL) – the public site for judgments and tribunal decisions, including data feeds under an innovative licensing approach—an important step towards open justice.
Both services are growing: AYR is moving beyond MVP, and FCL is expanding with richer metadata and new publishing workflows. Your work will help us scale features while keeping services robust and secure.
Join The National Archives’ Digital Archiving team to build and run services that open government and court records for everyone. Our Access to Digital Records products increase transparency and support open justice, while setting best practice for access to digital records.
What you’ll work on:
• Access Your Records (AYR) – secure, self service access for government departments to born digital records transferred to The National Archives (currently in private Beta).
• Find Case Law (FCL) – the public site for judgments and tribunal decisions, including data feeds under an innovative licensing approach—an important step towards open justice.
Both services are growing: AYR is moving beyond MVP, and FCL is expanding with richer metadata and new publishing workflows. Your work will help us scale features while keeping services robust and secure.
Job description
What you’ll do:
• Own and deliver frontend features across AYR and FCL—set technical direction, write high quality code, and work with external suppliers when needed.
• Operate production services—monitor, troubleshoot, and improve resilience, robustness and stability.
• Coach and mentor developers; line manage a junior colleague.
• Champion secure engineering and consistent standards; contribute to code reviews and quality practices.
• Stay curious and share—engage with the wider dev community, evaluate new technologies, and help colleagues keep up with digital preservation developments.
• Own and deliver frontend features across AYR and FCL—set technical direction, write high quality code, and work with external suppliers when needed.
• Operate production services—monitor, troubleshoot, and improve resilience, robustness and stability.
• Coach and mentor developers; line manage a junior colleague.
• Champion secure engineering and consistent standards; contribute to code reviews and quality practices.
• Stay curious and share—engage with the wider dev community, evaluate new technologies, and help colleagues keep up with digital preservation developments.
Person specification
What you’ll bring:
• Strong experience delivering server side rendered accessible interfaces (WCAG 2.2 AA)
• Strong web fundamentals (HTML, CSS/SASS, JavaScript) with an “open by default” mindset that makes reuse easy through components, design systems etc.
• Comprehensive approach to testing new features and bug fixes and delivering in an AGILE team
• Good knowledge of common frontend security vulnerabilities and how to mitigate them.
• Experience operating live services and explaining complex systems clearly to others.
Nice to have:
• Working to the Government Digital Service Standard.
• Understanding of python web frameworks such as Django and Flask
Working here:
• Hybrid working: We typically ask colleagues to be on site around 60% of the time—especially early on—so you can meet users and teammates.
• Security: SC clearance (or willingness to obtain) is required. This requires candidates to have been resident in the UK for at least the past three years. (Please do not apply if you have been resident in the UK for less than three years as your application will be rejected).
• Inclusive culture: We’re committed to improving the diversity of our workforce and warmly encourage applications from under represented groups
This is a full time post. However, requests for part-time working, flexible working and job share will be considered, taking into account at all times the operational needs of the Department.
APPLICATION PROCESS:
• Please submit your work history and a short statement highlighting relevant projects (links welcome). If you’ve built open source tools or public services, we’d love to see them.
• Interview: Interviews will be held on-site and will include a technical test
Selection for interview will be based on the ‘essential’ requirements as listed below so please make sure that your work history and your statement provide evidence for each of the criteria.
Essential criteria
• A strong track record of delivering production-quality, server-side rendered frontends with deep knowledge of HTML, CSS (including preprocessors such as Sass), JavaScript and templating, building services that work without JavaScript and layering enhancements on top
• Experience designing and optimising performant web interfaces, with a strong understanding of browser and network fundamentals (for example HTTP, caching, cookies, headers and the same-origin policy), and how HTML, CSS and JavaScript affect page load times, rendering, responsiveness and user-perceived performance.
• Experience building interfaces that meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at level AA, tested with assistive technologies, using a design system (such as the GOV.UK Design System) or shared components and patterns
• A good understanding of common web security risks and how to prevent them (for example cross-site scripting and cross-site request forgery), with experience implementing security controls in services where security matters, ideally those that handle sensitive or personal data
• Experience of automated testing at several levels (for example unit, integration, visual, accessibility and performance tests), choosing tests that catch real problems rather than just covering code, balancing confidence against speed, and working with continuous integration and delivery in an agile team
• Experience keeping a codebase easy to change by applying and enforcing frontend standards and conventions (for example from GOV.UK, MDN or an agreed house style), through linting and formatting configuration, code review and refactoring, and building and documenting reusable component libraries (with tools such as Storybook) and driving adoption across teams or products
• Experience coaching or mentoring other developers, formally or informally, with a clear interest in developing people, giving constructive feedback, supporting technical growth, and sharing knowledge across teams.
• Experience making sound technical decisions, weighing trade-offs and explaining the reasoning clearly to different audiences, working closely with designers, user researchers and product managers, and acting as a frontend expert who collaborates with peers beyond their own team
Desirable criteria
• Experience line managing developers, including setting objectives, holding regular one-to-ones, and supporting performance and progression
• Experience with a Python web framework such as Django or Flask, or a willingness to learn quickly
• Experience working to the GOV.UK Service Standard
• Experience operating production services, monitoring systems and responding to incidents
• Experience with search or large information content-heavy services
• Familiarity with cloud-hosted and containerised deployment
(Desirable criteria will only be used in the event of tied candidates during the selection process)
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.
• Strong experience delivering server side rendered accessible interfaces (WCAG 2.2 AA)
• Strong web fundamentals (HTML, CSS/SASS, JavaScript) with an “open by default” mindset that makes reuse easy through components, design systems etc.
• Comprehensive approach to testing new features and bug fixes and delivering in an AGILE team
• Good knowledge of common frontend security vulnerabilities and how to mitigate them.
• Experience operating live services and explaining complex systems clearly to others.
Nice to have:
• Working to the Government Digital Service Standard.
• Understanding of python web frameworks such as Django and Flask
Working here:
• Hybrid working: We typically ask colleagues to be on site around 60% of the time—especially early on—so you can meet users and teammates.
• Security: SC clearance (or willingness to obtain) is required. This requires candidates to have been resident in the UK for at least the past three years. (Please do not apply if you have been resident in the UK for less than three years as your application will be rejected).
• Inclusive culture: We’re committed to improving the diversity of our workforce and warmly encourage applications from under represented groups
This is a full time post. However, requests for part-time working, flexible working and job share will be considered, taking into account at all times the operational needs of the Department.
APPLICATION PROCESS:
• Please submit your work history and a short statement highlighting relevant projects (links welcome). If you’ve built open source tools or public services, we’d love to see them.
• Interview: Interviews will be held on-site and will include a technical test
Selection for interview will be based on the ‘essential’ requirements as listed below so please make sure that your work history and your statement provide evidence for each of the criteria.
Essential criteria
• A strong track record of delivering production-quality, server-side rendered frontends with deep knowledge of HTML, CSS (including preprocessors such as Sass), JavaScript and templating, building services that work without JavaScript and layering enhancements on top
• Experience designing and optimising performant web interfaces, with a strong understanding of browser and network fundamentals (for example HTTP, caching, cookies, headers and the same-origin policy), and how HTML, CSS and JavaScript affect page load times, rendering, responsiveness and user-perceived performance.
• Experience building interfaces that meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at level AA, tested with assistive technologies, using a design system (such as the GOV.UK Design System) or shared components and patterns
• A good understanding of common web security risks and how to prevent them (for example cross-site scripting and cross-site request forgery), with experience implementing security controls in services where security matters, ideally those that handle sensitive or personal data
• Experience of automated testing at several levels (for example unit, integration, visual, accessibility and performance tests), choosing tests that catch real problems rather than just covering code, balancing confidence against speed, and working with continuous integration and delivery in an agile team
• Experience keeping a codebase easy to change by applying and enforcing frontend standards and conventions (for example from GOV.UK, MDN or an agreed house style), through linting and formatting configuration, code review and refactoring, and building and documenting reusable component libraries (with tools such as Storybook) and driving adoption across teams or products
• Experience coaching or mentoring other developers, formally or informally, with a clear interest in developing people, giving constructive feedback, supporting technical growth, and sharing knowledge across teams.
• Experience making sound technical decisions, weighing trade-offs and explaining the reasoning clearly to different audiences, working closely with designers, user researchers and product managers, and acting as a frontend expert who collaborates with peers beyond their own team
Desirable criteria
• Experience line managing developers, including setting objectives, holding regular one-to-ones, and supporting performance and progression
• Experience with a Python web framework such as Django or Flask, or a willingness to learn quickly
• Experience working to the GOV.UK Service Standard
• Experience operating production services, monitoring systems and responding to incidents
• Experience with search or large information content-heavy services
• Familiarity with cloud-hosted and containerised deployment
(Desirable criteria will only be used in the event of tied candidates during the selection process)
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.
Benefits
Generous benefits package, including pension, sports and social club facilities, onsite gym, discounted rates at our on-site cafe and opportunities for training and development.
Any move to The National Archives from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at ;
Any move to The National Archives from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at ;
Things you need to know
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Selection process details
Reasonable adjustments:
If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.
If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:
- Contact The National Archives via careers@nationalarchives.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs
- Complete the “Assistance required” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check.
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).
See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Nationality requirements
This job is broadly open to the following groups:
- UK nationals
- nationals of the Republic of Ireland
- nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
- individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
- Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.
Diversity and Inclusion
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the
Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window)
and the
Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
Apply and further information
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available.
You may want to save a copy for your records.
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : Talent Acquisition Team
- Email : careers@nationalarchives.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : careers@nationalarchives.gov.uk
Further information
If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact The National Archives via email: careers@nationalarchives.gov.uk If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission at http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitment/complaints/
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