Lead Developer - DiSSCo UK

Natural History Museum; City of Westminster; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading cultural organization in the United Kingdom is seeking a Lead Developer to take technical ownership of the infrastructure supporting the DiSSCo UK programme. The role involves designing secure and scalable data services, fostering collaboration across technical teams, and influencing national technical decisions. With an emphasis on innovation and sustainability, this position provides an opportunity to create impactful digital solutions that benefit the UK research and biodiversity community. Competitive benefits and a commitment to diversity and inclusion are also offered.

Benefits

27.5 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays

Generous pension scheme

Season ticket and bicycle loans

Life insurance

Free admission to exhibitions

Staff discounts

Training and development opportunities

Qualifications

• Proven experience in technical leadership roles in digital infrastructure.
• Ability to manage complex, high-impact projects.
• Effective communication with stakeholders across various disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and delivery of digital infrastructure for DiSSCo UK.
• Develop data storage and services architecture.
• Collaborate with diverse technical teams and stakeholders.

Skills

Technical leadership

Complex digital infrastructure delivery

Collaboration

Technical communication

Job description

As Lead Developer, you will take technical ownership of the infrastructure required to deliver the DiSSCo UK programme, working at the intersection of science, data, and large-scale digital services. This is a rare opportunity to play a leading role in shaping the national digital infrastructure that will underpin the UK’s contribution to DiSSCo. You will lead the design and delivery of a secure, sustainable, and scalable data storage and services architecture capable of supporting partners with widely varying technical maturity. This infrastructure will combine procured cloud-based services, delivered in partnership with AHRC/UKRI and commercial suppliers, with bespoke, mission‑critical components developed in‑house. Your focus will be on building the connective tissue of the system: data mobilisation pipelines, publishing workflows and the integration of distributed local infrastructures into a unified national platform. You will work closely with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) as the primary access service, acting as a key technical partner in delivering globally discoverable biodiversity data. Based within the Natural History Museum’s Science Directorate, you will help establish and grow the DiSSCo UK infrastructure team, providing technical leadership with long‑term national and international impact. This role offers the chance to influence strategic technical decisions from the ground up and to see them realised at scale.

We are looking for an accomplished technical leader who thrives on delivering complex, high‑impact digital infrastructure. If you enjoy turning strategic ambition into working systems, setting technical direction and seeing challenging programmes through from concept to delivery, this is the role for you. You value collaboration as much as technical excellence. You communicate clearly and persuasively, build credibility with senior stakeholders and delivery teams, and are comfortable working across organisational and disciplinary boundaries to achieve shared goals. Motivated by impact and legacy, you are excited by the opportunity to shape a national‑scale programme from its early stages. You enjoy working in ambitious, evolving environments, taking ownership, and growing and leading a specialist team to deliver infrastructure that will support the UK research and biodiversity community for years to come.

We are a world‑class visitor attraction and leading science research centre. We use the Museum’s unique collections and our unrivalled expertise to tackle the biggest challenges facing the world today. We care for more than 80 million objects spanning billions of years and welcome more than five million visitors annually and 16 million visits to our website. Today the Museum is more relevant and influential than ever. By attracting people from a range of backgrounds to work for us, we can continue to look at the world with fresh eyes and find new ways of doing things. We employ 1100 staff in a variety of roles, all united by our vision of a future where people and planet thrive. We need everyone to have the passion and drive to help us with our mission to create advocates for our planet and inspire millions to care about the natural world. Diversity and inclusion matter to us. Our vision is of a future where both people and the planet thrive. Diversity is one of our core values and we strive to build a workplace where everyone feels a sense of belonging. All new staff who join us learn about the importance of diversity and inclusion to the Museum and how to contribute to creating an inclusive environment. We know we have more to do, but we are committed to ensuring that everyone who works at the Museum feels they can thrive and feel valued and respected.

The UK’s natural science collections, comprising over 140 million items, are a vital global resource holding unique data on Earth’s history and natural systems. However, their potential to address critical issues like biodiversity and climate change is limited by physical access and fragmented digitisation efforts, with less than 10% currently available digitally. To unlock this potential, DiSSCo UK (Distributed System of Scientific Collections UK, https://www.dissco-uk.org/) a consortium of over 90 UK natural science collections led by the Natural History Museum is developing a national infrastructure as part of the UKRI Infrastructure Roadmap. This 10‑year programme, expected to receive around 155 million in investment, will focus on digitising a critical mass of collections into FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data, supported by robust technology and innovative approaches like AI and robotics. Having already mobilised over 16 million records, DiSSCo UK aims to significantly accelerate digitisation from 2026, creating an unprecedented resource that promises substantial economic returns, efficiency savings for researchers, and groundbreaking research opportunities for a thriving future for both people and planet.

• 27.5 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays (full time equivalent)
• Generous defined contribution Natural History Museum Pension Scheme (employer contribution 4 - 10%)
• Season ticket, bicycle and rental loan
• Life insurance
• Free admission to our exhibitions and many other paid exhibitions at museums, galleries and institutions across London and the UK.
• Staff discount at our Museum shops and cafes
• We offer a wide variety of training initiatives and opportunities to build skills. Investing in staff development is important to us, and we are ambitious about helping staff to grow and fulfil their potential.