Ministry of Defence

Contents

• Location
• About the job
• Benefits
• Things you need to know
• Apply and further information

Centurion Building, Gosport, Hampshire, Southeast, PO13 9XA

Abbey Wood North, Stoke Gifford, Bristol, Southwest, BS34 8QW

Tomlinson House, Norcross, Blackpool, Lancashire, FY5 3WP

Kentigern House - Glasgow, G2 8EX

About the job

Job summary

Are you a dedicated person who is passionate about making a difference?

Would you like to work for the Ministry of Defence? 

Defence Business Services (DBS) is one of the largest shared service organisations in Europe that provides a wide range of corporate services, to over 1.2 million end users, including serving and past military and families, as well as MoD civil servants and industry. DBS delivers large scale administration and smaller specialist services to enable the wider MOD to focus on its core aims, maintaining the UK’s Defence and Security. Services include Human Resources, Pay, Veterans, Finance and Procurement.

• Our Vision - To support UK defence customers with outstanding service every time.
• Our Mission – Together we will proudly support Defence, continuously improving and delivering flexible, timely, sustainable and value for money services that underpin the whole force and enhance operational capability. 

DBS is committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues. We are building an inclusive culture and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society. 

We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us through opportunities to develop your skills and experience. We also offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make a fulfilling career accessible to you and offer a Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%. Where your role permits, we support a blended working approach alternatively known as hybrid working.

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. This is a non-contractual arrangement where all office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to capacity and any required workplace adjustments. Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD office, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements.

DBS has recently undertaken a review of its operational locations in the North West, and have consolidated all activities in Norcross, Blackpool. A further move, to the new Government Hub at Talbot Gateway in Blackpool, is scheduled to take place in 2026.

Come and join the DBS community today!

https://youtu.be/gUw0ToaRGgk

Job description

We have an exciting opportunity to join the Defence Business Services (DBS), Armed Forces and Veterans Services (AFVS), Development & Change (DevChg) DevOps Team. You will be part of a small DevOps (Development and Operations) team of Oracle Analytics Server (OAS) technical specialists, who provide development and support activities to a central AFVS data analytical service within the MoD. Analytical services provide statistical and detailed AFVS reports and dashboards, either directly or by self-serve, to enable the MoD to make informed decisions on military strength or investments, as well as a multitude of other business purposes related to people e.g. recruitment, training, health, pay, allowances, unit, assignment, etc.

DBS AFVS are collaborating with their commercial partners to deliver a major transformation programme aimed at providing a more robust and coherent IT/infrastructure using the latest Oracle Analytical and Data Integration products which will migrate to Cloud based services, offering many benefits, including a better customer experience.

As the successful candidate you’ll be a key member of the DevOps team, who provide business enhancement to a major Management Information reporting service within the MoD. Working collaboratively with our Commercial Partners, you will provide OAS technical support, maintenance, and development activities on a large enterprise data warehouse MI reporting application. You will be part of a wider group responsible for the development of change, which enhances the digital capabilities of services provided by AFVS.

Your responsibilities in this role.

• Provide data modelling, business analysis and development skills across the reporting platform.
• Develop data marts and reporting models to support the Oracle Analytics Server data warehouse.
• Work closely with our commercial partner and your colleagues to support the production service, investigate incidents and problems, provide analysis and resolution as part of a resolver team.
• Implement best practice for practical data management.
• Work within an ITIL aligned service management framework for implementing change.
• Work with your colleagues to ensure the underlying data for a business process is clearly documented, understood and communicated.
• Establish productive working relationships with our commercial partner, ensuring that data lifecycle, security and quality is at the fore for all projects.
• Ensure that all technical design artefacts address requirements and adhere to data management standards and principles.
• Support service transition lifecycle activities, including requirements development, solution design, testing and deployment.
• Profile data sets to assess the quality, reporting and analysis required.
• Work within an agile delivery focused team.

There are opportunities for training and development to further develop you within the role.

To succeed in this role, you should enjoy working as part of a team, be confident with IT, have excellent organisational and interpersonal skills and be an effective communicator. In return this role will provide you with the opportunity to expand your knowledge and develop your skills to a higher level.

Person specification

Essential skills and experience requirements:-

You must have demonstrable skills and experience of developing and supporting a data warehouse Human Resources platform, ideally using the Oracle Analytics Server (or Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE)) or equivalent, that provides analytical insights and Management Information reporting.

Some experience and exposure to working with Human Resources Enterprise Resource Planning applications such as Oracle e-Business Suite (EBS), where that is used as a data source for the data warehouse and analytical reporting.

Skilled in conducting dimensional data modelling (data-mart or star schema constructs) for data warehousing on Oracle databases (or an equivalent).

The following essential skills are drawn from the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework (formerly DDaT) Capability Framework for a DevOps Engineer

Programming and build (software engineering)

Level: Practitioner

You can:

• collaborate with others when necessary to review specifications.
• use the agreed specifications to design, code, test and document programs or scripts of medium-to-high complexity, using the right standards and tools.

Prototyping

Level: Practitioner

You can:

• approach prototyping as a team activity, actively soliciting prototypes, and testing with others.
• establish design patterns and iterate them.
• use a variety of prototyping methods and choose the most appropriate.

Service support

Level: Working.

You can:

• demonstrate a breadth of understanding of service support.

Systems design

Level: Working

You can:

• design systems characterised by medium levels of risk, impact, and business or technical complexity.
• review the systems designs of others to ensure the selection of appropriate technology, efficient use of resources and integration of multiple systems and technology.

User focus

Level: Working.

You can:

• collaborate with user researchers and can represent users internally.
• explain the difference between user needs and the desires of the user.
• champion user research to focus on all users.
• prioritise and define approaches to understand the user story, guiding others in doing so.
• offer recommendations on the best tools and methods to use.

Desirable skills and experience

• Working within Agile Teams.
• ITIL experience and/or certification
• Practical experience of development and support using Oracle products.

Qualifications

Oracle Database SQL or equivilant experience.

Languages

Proficient in the English language.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Managing a Quality Service
• Developing Self and Others
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Managing a Quality Service
• Developing Self and Others

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Programming and build (software engineering)
• Service Support

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £36,530, Ministry of Defence contributes £10,582 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• An environment with flexible working options Monday-Friday
• 25 days paid annual leave rising (1 day per year) to 30 days upon completion of 5 years' service (pro rata). In addition to 8 public holidays per year, you will also receive leave for the King's birthday
• Hybrid working, where role permits
• An opportunity to be considered for Reward & Recognition- £250-£5000 per year.
• Family friendly policies including parental leave and adoption leave
• Learning and development tailored to your role
• Professional and personal development of skills
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• Minimum of 15 days special leave in a rolling 12 month period for volunteer reserve commitments 
• Special paid leave to volunteer up to 6 days per year
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Allowances

The post does not offer relocation expenses.

Please be advised that the Department is conducting a review of all pay related allowances which could impact on those allowances that the post currently being advertised attracts.

External recruits who join the MOD who are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a six-month probation period.

Employment Hours

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Martin Bradford
• Email : martin.bradford842@mod.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : DBS-EnhancedRecruitmentTeam@mod.gov.uk

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel a department has breached the requirement of the Recruitment Principles and would like to raise this, please contact DBS-EnhancedRecruitmentTeam@MOD.gov.uk in the first instance. If the role has been advertised externally (outside of the Civil Service) and you are not satisfied with the response, you may bring your complaint to the Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitment/complaints/

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