DevOps Apprentice

Science and Technology Facilities Council

Oxfordshire (OX11 0QX)

Closes in 25 days (Monday 2 February 2026)

Posted on 5 January 2026

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Summary

As a DevOps Apprentice in our Scientific Computing Department, you'll dive into the heart of large-scale scientific computing, learning how to manage and maintain critical infrastructure and vast storage systems that underpin everything from particle physics to climate modelling. Become a vital contributor to the UK's scientific mission.

Wage

£24,340 a year

Check minimum wage rates (opens in new tab)

Throughout the course of your apprenticeship you will receive annual increments in line with policy

Training course
DevOps engineer (level 4)
Hours
Monday - Friday, 9.00am - 5.00pm

37 hours a week

Start date

Thursday 3 September 2026

Duration

2 years

Positions available

3

Work

Most of your apprenticeship is spent working. You’ll learn on the job by getting hands-on experience.

What you'll do at work

In the Storage Infrastructure Group, the type of work the apprentice will be involved in includes: 

  • Assist in improving monitoring infrastructure for our storage systems 
  • Contribute to the development and enhancement of storage orchestration layers 
  • Support daily operational tasks across our storage services 
  • Gain hands-on experience with automation, diagnostics, and system optimisation 
  • Collaborate with experienced engineers to maintain reliable and scalable storage platforms 

In the Systems Infrastructure Group, you will: 

  • Respond to alerts from monitoring systems
  • Collaborate on requests from the other groups we support 
  • Work with colleagues to gather requirements and build new enterprise grade virtual machines
  • Monitor, support and maintain the multi-terabit networks that underpin Scientific Computing 

In the Computing Platforms Group, you will: 

  • Monitor for operational issues and respond to automated alerts  
  • Propose and develop improved monitoring of our complex services  
  • Work with team members and other groups to identify the root cause of issues 
  • Test service improvements and collaborate with other team members and groups to deploy them 
  • Collaborate with colleagues to understand the facilities and their requirements 

Where you'll work

Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Harwell
Didcot
Oxfordshire
OX11 0QX

Training

Apprenticeships include time away from working for specialist training. You’ll study to gain professional knowledge and skills.

Training provider

TECHNICAL PROFESSIONALS LIMITED

Training course

DevOps engineer (level 4)

Understanding apprenticeship levels (opens in new tab)

What you'll learn

Course contents
  • Communicate credibly with technical and non-technical people at all levels, using a range of methods; e.g. ‘Show and Tell’ and ‘Demonstrations’.
  • Work within different organisational cultures with both internal and external parties
  • Translate user needs into deliverable tasks, writing clear, concise and unambiguous user stories that the whole team can understand.
  • Initiate and facilitate knowledge sharing and technical collaboration
  • Deploy immutable infrastructure
  • Install, manage and troubleshoot monitoring tools
  • Navigate and troubleshoot stateful distributed systems, in order to locate issues across the end-to-end service.
  • Work in agile, multi-disciplinary delivery teams, taking a flexible, collaborative and pragmatic approach to delivering tasks.
  • Application of a range of cloud security tools and techniques - e.g. threat modelling, vulnerability scanning, dependency checking, reducing attack surface area - incorporating these tools and techniques into the automated pipeline wherever possible.
  • Assess identified and potential security threats and take appropriate action based on likelihood v impact.
  • Employ a systematic approach to solving problems, using logic and hypotheses / experimentation to identify the source of issues.
  • Automate tasks where it introduces improvements to the efficiency of business processes and reduces waste, considering the effort and cost of automation.
  • Engage in productive pair/mob programming.
  • Write tests and follow Test Driven Development discipline in various different contexts.
  • Release automation and orchestration as part of a Continuous Integration workflow and Continuous Delivery pipeline, automating the delivery of code from source control to the end users.
  • Invest in continuous learning, both your own development and others, ensuring learning activities dovetail with changing job requirements. Keep up with cutting edge.
  • Code in a general purpose programming language.
  • Specify cloud infrastructure in an infrastructure-as-code domain-specific language.
  • Interpret logs and metrics data within the appropriate context to identify issues and make informed decisions.
  • Writing code in such a way that makes merging easier and facilitates branching by abstraction - i.e. feature toggling.
  • Application of lightweight modelling techniques, such as whiteboarding, in order to gain consensus as a team on evolving architecture.
  • Incremental refactoring by applying small behaviour-preserving code changes to evolve the architecture.
  • Communicate credibly with technical and non-technical people at all levels, using a range of methods; e.g. ‘Show and Tell’ and ‘Demonstrations’.
  • Work within different organisational cultures with both internal and external parties
  • Translate user needs into deliverable tasks, writing clear, concise and unambiguous user stories that the whole team can understand.
  • Initiate and facilitate knowledge sharing and technical collaboration
  • Deploy immutable infrastructure
  • Install, manage and troubleshoot monitoring tools
  • Navigate and troubleshoot stateful distributed systems, in order to locate issues across the end-to-end service.
  • Work in agile, multi-disciplinary delivery teams, taking a flexible, collaborative and pragmatic approach to delivering tasks.
  • Application of a range of cloud security tools and techniques - e.g. threat modelling, vulnerability scanning, dependency checking, reducing attack surface area - incorporating these tools and techniques into the automated pipeline wherever possible.
  • Assess identified and potential security threats and take appropriate action based on likelihood v impact.
  • Employ a systematic approach to solving problems, using logic and hypotheses / experimentation to identify the source of issues.
  • Automate tasks where it introduces improvements to the efficiency of business processes and reduces waste, considering the effort and cost of automation.
  • Engage in productive pair/mob programming.
  • Write tests and follow Test Driven Development discipline in various different contexts.
  • Release automation and orchestration as part of a Continuous Integration workflow and Continuous Delivery pipeline, automating the delivery of code from source control to the end users.
  • Invest in continuous learning, both your own development and others, ensuring learning activities dovetail with changing job requirements. Keep up with cutting edge.
  • Code in a general purpose programming language.
  • Specify cloud infrastructure in an infrastructure-as-code domain-specific language.
  • Interpret logs and metrics data within the appropriate context to identify issues and make informed decisions.
  • Writing code in such a way that makes merging easier and facilitates branching by abstraction - i.e. feature toggling.
  • Application of lightweight modelling techniques, such as whiteboarding, in order to gain consensus as a team on evolving architecture.
  • Incremental refactoring by applying small behaviour-preserving code changes to evolve the architecture.

Training schedule

Learning is delivered via remote weekly workshops

Requirements

Essential qualifications

GCSE in:

  • English (grade 4 or above)
  • Maths (grade 4 or above)

Other in:

Any subject (at least 2 if A-levels) (grade A-C, Merit-Distinction)

Share if you have other relevant qualifications and industry experience. The apprenticeship can be adjusted to reflect what you already know.

Skills

  • Communication skills
  • IT skills
  • Attention to detail
  • Problem solving skills
  • Logical
  • Team working
  • Initiative

About this employer

UKRI is an organisation that brings together the seven disciplinary research councils, Research England and Innovate UK. Together, we build an independent organisation with a strong voice and vision ensuring the UK maintains its world-leading position in research and innovation. Supporting some of the world’s most exciting and challenging research projects, we develop and operate some of the most remarkable scientific facilities in the world. We are pushing the frontiers of human knowledge through fundamental research and delivering benefits for UK society and the economy through world-class research, skills and business-led innovation.

https://www.ukri.org/councils/stfc/ (opens in new tab)

Company benefits

  • 30 days annual leave, plus Bank Holidays and Christmas Shutdown
  • Cycle to Work Scheme
  • Employee Discount Scheme

Disability Confident

Disability Confident

A fair proportion of interviews for this apprenticeship will be offered to applicants with a disability or long-term health condition. This includes non-visible disabilities and conditions.

You can choose to be considered for an interview under the Disability Confident scheme. You’ll need to meet the essential requirements to be considered for an interview.

After this apprenticeship

  • Further career and training opportunities

Ask a question

The contact for this apprenticeship is:

TECHNICAL PROFESSIONALS LIMITED

The reference code for this apprenticeship is VAC2000005938.

Apply now

Closes in 25 days (Monday 2 February 2026)

After signing in, you’ll apply for this apprenticeship on the company's website.