The results of a search for gluinos in final states with an isolated electron or muon, multiple jets and large missing transverse momentum using proton–proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of $$\sqrt{s} = 13 \mathrm{{\ Te V}}$$ are presented. The dataset used was recorded in 2015 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb $$^{-1}$$ . Six signal selections are defined that best exploit the signal characteristics. The data agree with the Standard Model background expectation in all six signal selections, and the largest deviation is a 2.1 standard deviation excess. The results are interpreted in a simplified model where pair-produced gluinos decay via the lightest chargino to the lightest neutralino. In this model, gluinos are excluded up to masses of approximately 1.6 Te V depending on the mass spectrum of the simplified model, thus surpassing the limits of previous searches.