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Job overview
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is looking for a Lead Front‑End Developer to play a key part in the improvement of digital services that support the NHS and wider health and care system.
You will have significant software development experience, balanced with strong leadership capability and expertise in modern software delivery practices.
As an expert practitioner of front-end development technologies, you will be a contributor to an agile, multidisciplinary engineering team, leading the development of accessible, secure, and performant applications used by millions of users. You will work closely with designers, technical testers and back‑end developers, contributing to technical decisions and supporting the professional development of other colleagues within the engineering team.
Leadership, mentoring and line-management are a significant part of this role.
This role qualifies for a 12.5% per annum recruitment and retention payment on top of the band 8A base salary. Interviews will be held in-person, in NICE’s Manchester office, during week beginning the 14th September 2026, and will include an assessment of technical capabilities.
Please note that this role may not be eligible for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker route, please refer to the Direct Gov website for more information with regards to eligibility.
We reserve the right to close adverts early should we receive sufficient applications so please don’t delay your submission
Main duties of the job
- Lead the design and build of robust, secure, front end web applications.
- Line-manage engineering team colleagues. Writing maintainable, and well tested code using modern front end technologies such as React, NextJs, Vite, Nuqs
- Work collaboratively as part of an Agile, multidisciplinary delivery team.
- Ensuring services meet accessibility standards (WCAG 2.2 AA) and follow NICE and GDS best practice.
- Participating in code reviews, ensuring that engineering standards are unheld.
- Play an active part in knowledge sharing and mentoring activities.
- Supporting live services and helping identify and resolve technical issues.
- Working with the wider engineering team to prototype, evaluate and integrate emerging technologies such as generative AI into secure, reusable and production ready front end components.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
To be considered for this role, you should be able to particularly demonstrate the person specification criteria in the job advert in your application. However, applicants should be able to demonstrate all essential criteria through the entirety of the recruitment process to be considered for the job. Please see job description attached for full list of responsibilities.
Person specification
Experience
Essential
- Proven and demonstrated experience leading a technical team through all phases of the software development lifecycle.
- Proven and demonstrated experience in building accessible interfaces that work for as many users as possible, regardless of their needs.
- Proven and demonstrated expereince of modern JavaScript, including libraries and frameworks such as ReactJS, NextJs, Vite, Nuqs.
Skills/Knowledge
Essential
- Proven and demonstrated experience of using testing frameworks to validate software solutions.
- Proven and demonstrated experience building robust, cross-browser and cross-device user interfaces.
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Applying for this NHS job
This advert is for Lead Developer (Front-End) with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in 3rd Floor, 3 Piccadilly Place. It is listed as a Band 8 Administrative and IT role. The advertised salary is £57,528 - £64,750 per annum (plus R&R 12.5%). The contract type is Permanent. The application deadline is 02 Sep 2026.
Before you apply, compare the job description with the person specification and mirror the employer's essential criteria in your supporting information. Use the vacancy title, employer, location, salary, contract type, closing date and posted date (21 Aug 2026) to decide whether this role fits your current NHS job search. If the employer can close applications early, prepare the application before the stated deadline rather than waiting for the final day.
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