Senior Quality Engineer

Location: National*

Closing Date: 27/10/26

Interviews: 5/11/26

Grade: 7

(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)

Salary**:

National: £58,511- £73,450 (which may include an allowance up to £14,939)

London: £63,343 - £78,225 (which may include an allowance up to £14,882)

Working pattern: Full-time, Part-time, Flexible working

Contract Type: Permanent

Number of vacancies: 5

Vacancy number: 23177

*We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your local office. Office locations can be found ON THIS MAP
Please note that unless you are an existing member of staff at Justice Digital, Data and Science, the only London location being recruited to is 10 South Colonnade, E14 4PU. We are no longer recruiting to 102 Petty France, SW1H 9AJ.

The Role

Please note this role requires you to pass Security Check clearance. Please click on the link for details.

We’re recruiting for Senior Quality Engineers here at Justice Digital, Data and Science to be part of our warm and collaborative Digital Probation and Legal Aid (LA) Digital teams.

This role aligns against Senior Test Engineer from the Government Digital and Data Framework

Probation Digital builds and supports digital services that probation practitioners rely on every day to manage risk, record accurate information, and deliver effective supervision. These services directly support better outcomes for individuals, communities and the justice system as a whole. Our work is essential to public safety and to the people under probation supervision.

Legal Aid Digital seeks to provide swift access to legal aid for those who need it and ensure efficient payment to providers of those services. Our work is incredibly important to some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

As a Senior Quality Engineer, you will assist teams to build quality into the products and services they deliver. You will work with multidisciplinary teams to engineer quality throughout the delivery lifecycle.

You will work early and collaboratively with product, delivery, architecture, software engineers, operational colleagues and other quality engineers to help teams deliver services that are reliable, accessible, secure, performant and maintainable.

You will help teams understand and manage quality risk, build effective quality practices into their ways of working, and use automation and engineering approaches to provide fast, reliable feedback. You will bring specialist expertise where it is needed, while enabling teams to adopt effective quality practices and take greater ownership of quality.

You will be part of a wider Quality Engineering community, sharing knowledge, developing standards and practices and helping others grow their quality engineering capability. You will have opportunities to develop your own technical and leadership skills through knowledge sharing, mentoring others, communities of practice, involvement in wider quality initiatives and helping to improve quality engineering capability.

The products and services you work on will vary, giving you the opportunity to work with different technologies, teams and challenges and to shape how quality is engineered across complex digital services.

You will be hands-on where required, working directly with teams to apply quality engineering practices, investigate risks and build automated and exploratory testing solutions. You will also work across team and service boundaries where needed, particularly where there are complex integrations, dependencies or end-to-end risks.

You’ll receive a range of excellent benefits when you join our department, including:

• A generous employer pension contribution of 28.97% through the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
• 25 days of annual leave (increasing to 30 days after 5 years of service), plus 8 bank holidays and a privilege day for the King’s birthday.
• Flexible working arrangements including hybrid working, working part-time or compressed hours. Designed to support a positive work–life balance.

You can find more details of the Benefits we offer here. To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital, Data and Science please take a look at our blog.

Key Responsibilities:

• Work collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams to engineer quality throughout the delivery lifecycle to live service.
• Enable teams to own and improve quality, providing coaching, guidance and practical support while bringing hands-on experience where it adds value.
• Provide technical and strategic leadership for multiple product teams, ensuring alignment with service outcomes and business goals.
• Develop and apply risk-based quality strategies, identifying quality risks, dependencies and opportunities for early intervention.
• Be hands-on where required, designing, developing and maintaining automated tests and quality checks, and undertaking exploratory testing to investigate risk and uncertainty.
• Advance automation initiatives, extending and standardising automated testing solutions using appropriate tools and frameworks.
• Apply appropriate testing and quality practices across API, integration and end-to-end testing, working with engineers to establish effective coverage at the right levels.
• Work with others to improve testability and observability and promote shared ownership of quality.
• Contribute to quality across functional and non-functional areas, including accessibility, security, performance, resilience and maintainability.
• Work closely with the Lead Quality Engineer to develop, apply and continuously improve quality standards, patterns and best practices, ensuring they are practical, proportionate and appropriate to the context.
• Use evidence from testing, delivery and live service to make quality, risk and confidence visible and support informed decisions.
• Implement shift-left testing practices, enabling early defect detection and prevention.
• Provide technical quality expertise across team and service boundaries, helping identify and address gaps in assurance.
• Coach and mentor colleagues and contribute to the Engineering community, sharing learning and building capability.
• Continuously improve quality strategies, processes and tooling and continuously explore and adopt effective approaches, tools and technologies.
• People manage and develop other Quality Engineers, supporting their growth and career progression.

If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!

Person Specification

Essential

• Experience overseeing testing across multiple teams throughout the software development lifecycle, demonstrating both technical and test leadership.
• Practical experience of quality engineering within modern software delivery, with the ability to work collaboratively and to be hands on where required.
• Experience of designing and implementing automated tests, with a good understanding of where different types of testing and quality checks provide value.
• Demonstrable experience designing, implementing and optimising automated UI and API test frameworks using tools such as Playwright, Selenium, Cypress, Bruno and Pact, driving quality through the adoption of test automation best practice and the integration of testing within CI/CD pipelines and source control environments.
• Experience applying risk based and exploratory testing approaches to identify and investigate quality risks and uncertainty.
• The ability to work across functional and non-functional quality, considering areas such as accessibility, security, performance, resilience and maintainability.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to use evidence to understand risk, investigate failures and improve quality.
• The ability to enable and influence others to adopt holistic quality practices, communicating effectively, including with people who are not quality specialists.
• A commitment to continuous learning and improving quality engineering practice, with the curiosity to learn new technologies, approaches and Coaching others

Willingness to be assessed against the requirements for SC clearance

We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate based on culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor.

Our values are Purpose, Humanity, Openness and Together.

Find out more here about how we celebrate diversity and an inclusive culture in our workplace.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

Salary Information**

Base salary for this role is from

London: £63,343 - £70,725

National: £58,511 - £65,329

• New entrants to the Civil Service joining the MoJ are expected to start at the minimum of the pay band.
• Existing Civil Servants moving on a level transfer will retain their current base salary or move to the minimum of the pay band for the role, whichever is higher.
• Existing Civil Servants who are promoted will either move to the bottom of the new grade’s pay band or receive a 10% uplift, whichever provides the greater increase.
• Candidates may also be eligible for a non‑pensionable Government Digital & Data Allowance of up to £14,882 per year (London) or £14,939 (National). This is a temporary allowance, reviewed annually and may be retained, amended, or withdrawn.

The final offer will reflect the skills and experience you demonstrate during the assessment process.

How to Apply

In Justice Digital, Data and Science, we recruit using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks. We shall assess a combination of your Experience, Technical skills and Behaviours during the assessment process.

Stage 1 - Application and sift:

To apply for this position, you must submit the following as part of your application

• A CV detailing your career history (including any relevant qualifications). Your CV will be assessed against the essential criteria outlined within the Person Specification of this advert.
• A Personal Statement (no more than 750 words) which should outline your experience and skills, giving clear examples of work undertaken. It should specifically address the following criteria listed below.
• Experience overseeing testing across multiple teams and throughout the entire software development lifecycle, demonstrating both technical and test leadership.
• Demonstrable experience designing, implementing and optimising automated UI and API test frameworks using tools such as Playwright, Selenium, Cypress, Bruno and Pact, driving quality through the adoption of test automation best practice and the integration of testing within CI/CD pipelines and source control environments.
• The ability to work across functional and non-functional quality, considering areas such as accessibility, security, performance, resilience and maintainability.

Candidates who do not adhere to the Personal Statement directions above may be rejected on this basis.

A diverse sift panel will review the information in your CV and Personal Statement to assess the sift criteria specified above. We operate an anonymous shortlisting process. Please ensure your CV and Personal Statement do not include your name or any other identifying details.

Please access the following link for guidance on how to apply - Application Guidance

Candidates invited to interview will be required to complete a technical assessment in advance. The assessment will focus on test automation and the ability to take a wider, holistic view of quality.

During the interview, candidates will present their solution to the panel and discuss their approach, technical decisions, and outcomes.

Stage 2 - Interviews:

At interview stage, you will be assessed against the following Success Profile elements - Experience, Technical Skills and the following Behaviours:

• Working together
• Making effective decisions
• Communicating and influencing
• Developing self and others
• Changing and improving

Appointments are made strictly in merit order. If two or more candidates receive identical interview scores, "strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to use evidence to understand risk, investigate failures and improve quality" will be applied as the primary lead criterion to determine the final merit order.

Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for but demonstrate the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and offer you the position without needing a further application.

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, from which further appointments may be made.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Terms & Conditions

Please review our Terms and Conditions which set out how we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact digitalanddatarecruitment@justice.gov.uk