Senior Applications Engineer (Chelmsford/North Kent)

Location of Role: Chelmsford / North Kent 

Advert Closing Date: 22/04/2026 

Starting Salary: £41,856.00 (pro-rata for part-time vacancies)

Part/Full Time: Full Time 

Contract Type: Permanent 

Working Pattern: Mon-Fri 

Weekend/Evening Working: Yes 

We are seeking a new Senior Applications Engineer to join our Commercial Applications team in IT Services. The Commercial Applications team are responsible for the build, implementation, and support of a significant number of systems and services across a wide range of technologies. This is a post that requires a professional approach to learning new technologies and systems as our engineers are skilled at proactively searching for the information they need to diagnose faults reported on a vast range of applications across the entirety of Essex Police, Kent Police, and Kent Fire Control Room. 

As a Senior Applications Engineer, you’ll be responsible for:

• Supporting IT programme delivery of new systems and interfaces.
• Developing and updating system support documentation.
• Patching and upgrades of systems.
• Providing 2nd and 3rd line support to a variety of corporate applications and their interfaces, both cloud and ‘on-premise’ ensuring service delivery is aligned to ITIL.
• Updating and managing workload through our IT Service Management tool, ensuring high quality input that aids resolution understanding and future critical incident management.
• Providing technical advice and guidance to a range of complex or escalated technical issues; working in a multiple disciple team, alone, or through managing a third party supplier. 
• Providing on-call services within an out-of-hours support rota.

In your application, please evidence the following requirements:

• 2 to 3 years working as technical practitioner in an IT support or programme environment.
• A high standard of Customer Service, engaging with system users across their varying needs and under duress, with the ability to speak confidently on technical topics without overusing jargon, between police staff, officers, and fellow IT colleagues.
• A good knowledge and experience of ITIL processes; able to demonstrate your high standards of record keeping, incident, change and problem management, as well as efficiently documenting new fixes to maintain and consolidate the team’s pool of knowledge..
• Thorough knowledge and understanding of the Enterprise application architecture, including the framework and principles on which servers, networks, and operating systems are based eg Windows Server, UNIX, LINUX, Oracle, SQL-Server, TCP/IP, etc.
• Proficiency in everyday desktop software, specific application systems, and be familiar with the use of information retrieval tools.

A Senior Applications Engineer sits in our Commercial Applications Team and reports to a Commercial Applications Team Leader. It’s a team that provides support and development services for Force systems.

Our IT Department has a wide and varied range of responsibilities from 1st line service desk, 2nd line technical support to 3rd line specialist technical architect/design. IT are also responsible for IT Security management, Service Management, Business Support and Project Management that maintain and continuously improve critical services, software, platforms, and hardware required throughout the full IT lifecycle. This underpins the delivery of secure and timely 24/7 operations for approximately 13,000 users across 130+ geographical locations supporting over 14000 computers including hosted datacentres together with the underlying network, physical and virtual (including cloud services) IT infrastructure.

Benefits Include:

• Training and professional development opportunities
• Local Government Pension Scheme
• 26 days Annual Leave increasing to 29 days after 5 years employment.
• Flexible working dependant of duties
• On site fitness centre and canteen (location dependent)
• Collaborative and supportive work environment.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Wellness programmes
• Blue light Discount Card
• Opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to public safety and community well-being.

This role is suitable for part time/job share workers

For more information about the role please contact john.knowles@essex.police.uk

Kent Police offer incremental increases within this salary band, therefore the salary for this position will rise to a maximum of £47,505.00.

For the full Kent job description please click here. 

For the full job Essex description please click here. 

Kent Police and Essex Police have separate salary grading systems therefore the salary for this position will be dependent on which home office force you are appointed to. This will be discussed with the successful applicant before a final offer is made.

Your application for this role will be shortlisted on the content you provide within the “reason for application” question, within the application form itself. CV’s, covering letters or attachments are not included in the shortlist. Within your “reason for application” answer, please refer to any experience, skills, and abilities you feel you have that will make you suitable for this role, based on the role criteria stated in the job advert or job description. Please provide as much detail as possible as insufficient content may mean you do not meet the shortlisting criteria, however please note this question is limited to 9000 characters and this system will count spaces and blank lines as characters. This count may differ from the Microsoft Word word count function therefore you may wish to use a different online character counter to check the characters used.

All of our posts require a level of vetting and security clearance.  During the recruitment process you will be sent vetting information forms to complete. 

Kent Police and Essex Police welcomes applications regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, sex, or employment status.

Please let us know if you require extra support at any stage of the application process, or for further information regarding this position, please email us at recruitment.business.services@ecis.police.uk stating ‘Application Support and Adjustments’ in the title of your email. Alternatively, you can call us on 01245 452833. Where appropriate we will make adjustments to the selection process, working arrangements and/or the working environment provided it is reasonable in all the circumstances to do so.

If you’re not from the UK, you must be a resident in the UK and have lived here continuously for the last three years. You must also be free from restrictions with indefinite leave to remain. If you’re from the UK you must have lived here continuously for the last three years. This doesn’t apply to those serving abroad in the British Armed Forces.

Essex Police is a Disability Confident Leader, we:

• have subjected our Disability Confident self-assessment to external challenge and validation
• are taking an active leadership role in encouraging and helping other employers on their journey to becoming Disability Confident.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion are central to the values of our organisation. At Essex Police we value and embrace the unique experiences, identities and abilities that each of us bring to our roles. We strive to empower everyone to bring their authentic self openly and safely to work.

Through the dedicated commitment of our support networks, DE&I team and wider HR departments, we are on a journey to embed our DE&I commitments, ensuring Essex Police is an employer of choice; where everyone feels included.

Essex Police and Kent Police are an equal opportunities employer. Communications may be recorded for monitoring purposes.