Senior PHP Developer

Gallagher; Wakefield; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading benefits consulting firm in Wakefield is seeking a Senior PHP Developer to enhance and maintain a proprietary PHP-based platform. This role involves collaborating on API designs, developing secure and scalable backend services, and contributing to the transition to a microservices architecture. Candidates should have significant experience in PHP development, particularly with Symfony, and be proficient in Docker and Kubernetes. The position offers competitive compensation along with various benefits including 25 days holiday and a defined contribution pension scheme.

Benefits

Minimum of 25 days holiday

Defined contribution pension scheme

Health cash plan or private medical insurance

Employee Stock Purchase plan

Discounted gym membership

Qualifications

• Experience with PHP 8 and secure coding practices.
• Background in multi-tenant systems and cloud-native architectures.
• Familiarity with CI/CD workflows and containerized deployment.

Responsibilities

• Maintain and extend a proprietary PHP-based platform.
• Develop scalable containerized backend services.
• Collaborate on API design for new services.

Skills

PHP development

Symfony

Doctrine ORM

Microservices architecture

REST APIs

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

ElasticSearch

Job description

Introduction

At Gallagher Benefit Services, you’re a trusted partner to organizations navigating some of their most important people decisions. We help clients build better workplaces, where people feel supported, empowered, and inspired to thrive. Whether it’s shaping benefit strategies, designing wellbeing programs, or advising on workforce challenges, the work you do here creates meaningful change for businesses and the people who power them. We’re a community of bold explorers, trusted experts, and compassionate partners; working side by side to solve problems, and shape the future of work. Here, curiosity is encouraged, collaboration is second nature, and your ideas have room to grow. If you’re looking for a place where your contribution matters and where you can help build a better world of work; think of Gallagher.

Overview

The Senior PHP Developer will play a key role in the maintenance, enhancement, and strategic development of a proprietary extensible multi‑tenancy data‑driven platform that underpins a diverse portfolio of digital solutions across global markets. Architected as a headless, RESTful PHP application, this platform supports scalable content management, dynamic user authentication, and integration with a broad range of front‑end technologies and external systems.

Working closely with the Principal Developer, Head of Technology, and cross‑functional delivery teams, the successful candidate will be responsible for implementing secure, efficient, and maintainable code, whilst contributing to the broader evolution of the platform architecture. This includes driving the decomposition of monolithic functions into modular microservices within a fully cloud‑native, event‑driven ecosystem.

The role demands a strong foundation in PHP development, a product‑minded approach to change management, and an understanding of scalable backend systems. The Senior PHP Developer will also contribute to a shared component model and reusability strategy that prioritises maintainability, interoperability, and platform extensibility across client solutions.

How you'll make an impact

• Maintain and extend a proprietary PHP‑based platform with a focus on stability, security, and performance.
• Develop secure, reusable, and scalable containerised backend services using PHP 8, Symfony, and Doctrine ORM.
• Contribute to the strategic decoupling of platform capabilities into independently deployable Symfony‑based microservices, aligned with a cloud‑native, event‑driven architecture.
• Ensure compatibility and integration with front‑end applications via RESTful APIs (commonly Angular‑based, but front‑end‑agnostic).
• Apply a productised approach to change management, evaluating bespoke client requests for broader reuse across the platform.
• Uphold and contribute to platform‑wide engineering standards, including secure coding, error handling, and performance optimisation.
• Collaborate on API design and domain modelling for new services and platform extensions.
• Support CI/CD workflows and contribute to containerised deployment processes using Docker and Kubernetes.
• Assist in the identification, resolution, and prevention of bugs and vulnerabilities in production and development environments.
• Produce and maintain technical documentation, ensuring alignment with team standards and platform governance.
• Participate in sprint planning, backlog grooming, and peer code reviews.
• Work closely with security and infrastructure teams to ensure compliance with regulatory and organisational standards.
• Provide informal mentoring and guidance to mid‑level and junior developers within the team.
• Stay abreast of Symfony ecosystem updates and relevant advancements in PHP, cloud‑native design, and scalable backend patterns.

About You

• Background working on a productised platform or multi‑tenant system serving multiple clients.
• Experience integrating with third‑party systems including HRIS, payroll platforms, and identity providers (e.g., OKTA).
• Familiarity with ElasticSearch, secure SFTP data handling, and platform performance monitoring.
• Understanding of event queue systems and asynchronous processing.
• Knowledge of front‑end‑back‑end integration with Angular or mobile clients via REST APIs.
• Awareness of privacy‑by‑design and compliance practices in platform development (e.g., GDPR).
• Previous experience supporting the migration of monolithic applications to modular service‑oriented architectures.

Eligibility Requirements

Must have the Right to Work in the United Kingdom.

Compensation and benefits

On top of a competitive salary, great teams and exciting career opportunities, we also offer a wide range of benefits.

Below are the minimum core benefits you’ll get, depending on your job level these benefits may improve:

• Minimum of 25 days holiday, plus bank holidays, and the option to ‘buy’ extra days
• Defined contribution pension scheme, which Gallagher will also contribute to
• Life insurance, which will pay 4x your basic annual salary, which you can top‑up to 10x
• Income protection, we’ll cover up to 50% of your annual income, with options to top up
• Health cash plan or Private medical insurance

Other benefits include:

• Three fully paid volunteering days per year
• Employee Stock Purchase plan, offering company shares at a discount
• Share incentive plan, HMRC approved, tax effective, stock purchase plan
• Critical illness cover
• Discounted gym membership, with over 3,000 gyms nationally
• Season ticket loan
• Access to a discounted voucher portal to save money on your weekly shop or next big purchase
• Emergency back‑up family care
• And many more…

We value inclusion and diversity

Inclusion and diversity (I&D) is a core part of our business, and it’s embedded into the fabric of our organisation. For more than 95 years, Gallagher has led with a commitment to sustainability and to support the communities where we live and work.

Gallagher embraces our employees’ diverse identities, experiences and talents, allowing us to better serve our clients and communities. We see inclusion as a conscious commitment and diversity as a vital strength. By embracing diversity in all its forms, we live out The Gallagher Way to its fullest.

Gallagher is Disability Confident Committed. We have pledged to make sure our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible, in addition to supporting our existing employees with any long‑term health conditions or disabilities.

We understand that applicants may have disabilities, if you do, you may find some parts of the recruitment process more challenging than others. Don’t worry, we’re here to help, however, we can only do this if you let us know.

Should you require reasonable adjustments to your application, please get in touch with [e-mail]. If you’d prefer to speak on the phone, please request a call back, leaving details, so we get in touch.

Our employing entity, Arthur J. Gallagher Services (UK) Limited, is proud to be accredited as a Living Wage employer with the Living Wage Foundation. We are committed to diversity and opportunity for all and are opposed to any form of less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender or gender identity, marital status, parental status, race, ethnicity, colour, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, religion/ belief, age and those with caring responsibilities.

Gallagher believes that all persons are entitled to equal employment opportunity and prohibits any form of discrimination by its managers, employees, vendors or customers based on race, color, religion, creed, gender (including pregnancy status), sexual orientation, gender identity (which includes transgender and other gender non‑conforming individuals), gender expression, hair expression, marital status, parental status, age, national origin, ancestry, disability, medical condition, genetic information, veteran or military status, citizenship status or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws.

Equal employment opportunity will be extended in all aspects of the employer‑employee relationship, including, but not limited to, recruitment, hiring, training, promotion, transfer, demotion, compensation, benefits, layoff, and termination. In addition, Gallagher will make reasonable accommodations to known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified person with a disability, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of our business.