Lead Developer (Front-End)

NICE - National Institute for Health and Care Excellence; Manchester; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 60,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

NHS Pension

Flexible working

27 days annual leave

Diversity networks

Learning and development

Job summary

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is seeking an experienced Lead Front‑End Developer in Manchester to lead secure, accessible front‑end delivery for NHS digital services. You will guide an agile, multidisciplinary team, mentor engineers, and shape technical decisions with designers and back‑end colleagues.

Role emphasizes leadership, modern front-end tech, performance, and accessibility standards, with in-person interviews in the NICE Manchester office.

Qualifications

• Experience leading front-end development teams.
• Strong experience delivering accessible, secure front-end apps.
• Proven ability to mentor and line-manage engineers.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and build of robust, secure, front end web applications.
• Line-manage engineering team colleagues and write maintainable, well-tested code using modern front end technologies.
• Collaborate in an Agile, multidisciplinary delivery team.
• Ensure services meet accessibility standards (WCAG 2.2 AA) and follow NICE and GDS best practice.
• Participate in code reviews to uphold engineering standards.
• Contribute to knowledge sharing and mentoring activities.
• Support live services and diagnose technical issues.
• Prototype and integrate new technologies, including AI, into reusable front end components.

Skills

Leadership

Front-end

React

Next.js

Accessibility

Tools

React

Next.js

Vite

Job description

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

• 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.

The Digital, Information and Technology (DIT) directorate is an 80-strong team of digital, information and technology professionals. Our digital teams adopt a user‑centric agile methodology and work in multi‑disciplinary teams. We develop and maintain NICE’s suite of digital and technology services, including NICE’s website which attracts more than 2 million users a month.

We are passionate and proud of the work we do and the impact we make.

NICE offer:

• Generous NHS Pension – Secure your future with one of the most rewarding pension schemes in the UK
• Flexible working – Enjoy a healthy work-life balance with options like remote working, compressed hours and flexible start/finish times
• Exclusive discounts – Save on shopping, dining and more with a Blue Light Card Time to recharge – Start with 27 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays
• Inclusive staff networks – Join supportive communities like Women in NICE, Race Equality Network, Disability Advocacy and NICE and Proud – we celebrate diversity
• Tailored development – Grow your career with personalised learning and development opportunities

For further details / informal visits contact: Name: Andrew Child Job title: Principal Engineer Email address: [e-mail]