Legacy Software Engineer (£40,590)

Government Recruitment Service; Swansea; On-site; GBP 37,000 - 45,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Employer pension

25 days annual leave

Flexible working

Job summary

Government Recruitment Service in Swansea is seeking a Legacy Software Engineer responsible for supporting and enhancing its mission-critical Vehicle System Software ecosystem. You will work on services used by millions of customers, across a complex set of applications and databases, ensuring stability and ongoing improvements.

This role offers a chance to grow technical expertise within a supportive team, with Civil Service benefits and a clear progression path.

Qualifications

• Experience with maintaining and enhancing business-critical applications.
• Strong debugging and problem-solving skills in large, complex systems.

Responsibilities

• Support, maintain and enhance business-critical applications and services.
• Investigate issues and contribute to their resolution.
• Develop and implement software changes aligned with business requirements.
• Support batch processing, application support tasks and service maintenance.
• Work with databases to analyse data and support operations.
• Collaborate with engineers, delivery teams and stakeholders on technical solutions.
• Contribute to system testing, releases and service improvements.
• Grow knowledge of the technologies and processes used across the service.

Job description

Legacy Software Engineer (£40,590)

Company: Government Recruitment Service

Salary: £40,590 to £40,590 a year

Hours: Full-time

Location: Swansea

Job type: Permanent

Posting date: 9 Nov 2026

Closing date: 29 Nov 2026

Are you a software engineer who enjoys solving technical problems and working on systems that make a real difference?

We're looking for a Legacy Software Engineer to join the team responsible for supporting and enhancing one of DVLA's most important business systems. You'll help maintain and develop services that support millions of customers, working with a range of technologies across a complex and specialist application estate.

This is an excellent opportunity to build your software engineering experience, develop your technical skills and work within a supportive team responsible for delivering reliable and effective services.

Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:

• Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here
• 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays a privilege day for the King’s birthday
• Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.

Read more in the Benefits section below!

Find out more about what it's like working at DVLA – Home | Civil Service Careers.

As a Legacy Software Engineer, you'll join the team responsible for Vehicle System Software (VSS), the UK's vehicle system of record, containing information relating to more than 48 million vehicles.

VSS supports many of DVLA's core services and consists of a large and complex estate of applications, databases, batch processes and integrated services. The team is responsible for ensuring these systems remain stable, available and fit for purpose whilst delivering enhancements that support changing business requirements.

Working alongside experienced engineers and technical specialists, you'll support the investigation of technical issues, develop software changes and contribute to the ongoing maintenance and improvement of the service. You'll gain exposure to a specialist technology stack and play an important role in ensuring services continue to meet the needs of customers and stakeholders.

This is a varied role offering opportunities to develop your technical expertise while contributing to the delivery of critical public services.

We are recruiting at both Senior Executive Officer (SEO) and Higher Executive Officer (HEO) grades.

Responsibilities

Your responsibilities will include but will not be limited to:

• Supporting, maintaining and enhancing business-critical applications and services.
• Investigating application and service issues and contributing to their resolution.
• Developing and implementing software changes in line with business and user requirements.
• Supporting batch processing, application support activities and service maintenance tasks.
• Working with databases to analyse data and support operational activities.
• Collaborating with engineers, delivery teams and stakeholders to deliver technical solutions.
• Contributing to system testing, release activities and service improvements.
• Developing your knowledge of the technologies, tools and processes used across the service.

Great line management is important to us as an organisation, and we will equip and support line managers to develop the skills set out in the Civil Service Line Management Standards

For further information on the role, please read the attached role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.

Would you like to find out more about the role, the team and what it’s like to work in our department?

If so, we are organising an open session where you can virtually 'meet the team' on 25th November at 12:00pm.

Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme.

About Disability Confident Disability Confident is a government scheme. It encourages employers to recruit and retain disabled people and those with long term health conditions.