Senior Quality Engineer (Ref: 13915)

East Midlands (England), East of England, London (region), North East England, North West England, Scotland, South East England, South West England, Wales, West Midlands (England), Yorkshire and the Humber

Job Summary

This position is based Nationally

Job Description

Senior Quality Engineer

Location: National*

Closing Date: 1st February 2026

Interviews: w/c 16th February 2026

Grade: 7 (MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)

Salary: London: £63,343 – £78,225 (which may include an allowance of up to £14,882) National: £58,511 – £73,450 (which may include an allowance of up to £14,939)

Working pattern : Full-Time/Part-time/Flexible working

Contract Type: Permanent

Vacancy number: 13915

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

The Role

We’re recruiting for a Senior Quality Engineer here at Justice Digital, to be part of our warm and collaborative Digital Probation and Legal Aid Agency (LAA) team. This role aligns against Senior Test Engineer from the Government Digital and Data Framework

The work we do is incredibly important to public safety and to the people under probation supervision. 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. LAA Digital seeks to provide swift access to legal aid for those who need it and ensure efficient payment to providers of those services. The work we do is incredibly important to some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

As a Senior Quality Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring that digital services are reliable, scalable, and of high quality. Working alongside a multidisciplinary team, you will adopt a strategic approach to quality, ensuring test strategies and plans mitigate risk to the business goals. You will design and execute functional and non-functional tests, design and implement test automation frameworks to assist with testing and enable quality across multiple teams. This is a hands-on role where you will have the opportunity to apply best practices, develop test automation, and integrate quality at every stage of development.

The Community

You will be part of a collaborative and supportive engineering community, working with developers, product managers, user researchers, designers, business analysts, and delivery managers to embed quality into digital solutions. We champion continuous learning, open communication, and agile methodologies, ensuring our teams thrive in an environment that is both inclusive and transparent. We subscribe to the manifesto for agile software development. We’re open and transparent. We believe in building quality into our products, systems and services and that quality is everyone’s responsibility. To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025

Key Responsibilities:

• Work in multidisciplinary teams to deliver high-impact digital services for Probation Digital and LAA Digital
• Provide technical and strategic leadership for multiple product teams, ensuring alignment with service outcomes and business goals.
• Design and develop risk-based test strategies and plans that integrate testing throughout the entire software development lifecycle.
• Advance automation initiatives, extending and standardising automated testing solutions using appropriate tools and frameworks.
• Enable whole-team involvement in quality assurance activities at every phase of delivery.
• Implement shift-left testing practices, ensuring early defect detection and prevention.
• Contribute to the wider Justice Digital engineering community, sharing knowledge, mentoring junior engineers, and promoting best practices.
• Continuously evolve and optimise test strategies, processes, and tooling.
• Foster effective communication around quality and testing within and beyond your teams.
• People manage and develop other Quality Engineers, supporting their growth and career progression.

Benefits

37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours.

A £1k per person learning budget is in place to support all our people, with access to best in class conferences and seminars, accreditation with professional bodies, fully funded vocational programmes and e-learning platforms

Staff have 10% time to dedicate to develop & grow

Generous civil service pension based on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 28.97% from April 1st 2024 (Contribution Rates)

25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and 1 privilege day usually taken around the Kings’ birthday.

5 additional days of leave once you have reached 5 years of service.

Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!

Wellbeing support including access to the Calm app.

Nurturing professional and interpersonal networks including those for Carers & Childcare, Gender Equality, PROUD and SPIRIT

Bike loans up to £2500 and secure bike parking (subject to availability and location)

Season ticket loans, childcare vouchers and eye-care vouchers.

5 days volunteering paid leave.

Some offices may have a subsidised onsite Gym.

Person Specification

Essential

Overseeing testing across multiple teams and throughout the entire software development lifecycle, demonstrating both technical and test leadership.

Practical experience of designing and implementing various test types to deliver comprehensive test coverage.

Design, build, and maintain automated test frameworks for UI and API testing using tools such as Postman, Selenium, Cypress, or Playwright.

Applied automation and testing best practices, improving test automation frameworks and delivery pipelines.

Advocating for quality activities in an Agile context

A collaborative mindset, mentoring, coaching, growing and inspiring others to adopt holistic testing practices.

Practical experience with non-functional testing (Performance, Security, Accessibility) and related tooling.

Strong understanding of shift-left principles, including CI/CD pipelines.

Collaborate with others to define success criteria and quality metrics to measure and demonstrate progress.

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.

Senior Quality Engineer

Location: National*

Closing Date: 1st February 2026

Interviews: w/c 16th February 2026

Grade: 7 (MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)

Salary: London: £63,343 – £78,225 (which may include an allowance of up to £14,882) National: £58,511 – £73,450 (which may include an allowance of up to £14,939)

Working pattern : Full-Time/Part-time/Flexible working

Contract Type: Permanent

Vacancy number: 13915

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

The Role

We’re recruiting for a Senior Quality Engineer here at Justice Digital, to be part of our warm and collaborative Digital Probation and Legal Aid Agency (LAA) team. This role aligns against Senior Test Engineer from the Government Digital and Data Framework

The work we do is incredibly important to public safety and to the people under probation supervision. 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. LAA Digital seeks to provide swift access to legal aid for those who need it and ensure efficient payment to providers of those services. The work we do is incredibly important to some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

As a Senior Quality Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring that digital services are reliable, scalable, and of high quality. Working alongside a multidisciplinary team, you will adopt a strategic approach to quality, ensuring test strategies and plans mitigate risk to the business goals. You will design and execute functional and non-functional tests, design and implement test automation frameworks to assist with testing and enable quality across multiple teams. This is a hands-on role where you will have the opportunity to apply best practices, develop test automation, and integrate quality at every stage of development.

The Community

You will be part of a collaborative and supportive engineering community, working with developers, product managers, user researchers, designers, business analysts, and delivery managers to embed quality into digital solutions. We champion continuous learning, open communication, and agile methodologies, ensuring our teams thrive in an environment that is both inclusive and transparent. We subscribe to the manifesto for agile software development. We’re open and transparent. We believe in building quality into our products, systems and services and that quality is everyone’s responsibility. To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025

Essential

Overseeing testing across multiple teams and throughout the entire software development lifecycle, demonstrating both technical and test leadership.

Practical experience of designing and implementing various test types to deliver comprehensive test coverage.

Design, build, and maintain automated test frameworks for UI and API testing using tools such as Postman, Selenium, Cypress, or Playwright.

Applied automation and testing best practices, improving test automation frameworks and delivery pipelines.

Advocating for quality activities in an Agile context

A collaborative mindset, mentoring, coaching, growing and inspiring others to adopt holistic testing practices.

Practical experience with non-functional testing (Performance, Security, Accessibility) and related tooling.

Strong understanding of shift-left principles, including CI/CD pipelines.

Collaborate with others to define success criteria and quality metrics to measure and demonstrate progress.

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.

Person specification

Please See Attached Job Description

Alongside your salary of £58,511, Ministry of Justice contributes £16,950 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Access to learning and development

A working environment that supports a range of flexible working options to enhance your work life balance

A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity

A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Annual Leave

Public Holidays

Season Ticket Advance

For more information about the recruitment process, benefits and allowances and answers to general queries, please click the below link which will direct you to our Candidate Information Page.

Link: https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

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 (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

How to Apply

Candidates must submit a CV and Cover Letter (750 words) which describes how you meet the requirements set out in the Person Specification above.

Application Guidance

Please access the following link for guidance on how to apply and how to complete a Personal Statement

Application Guidance

In Justice Digital, We Recruit Using a Combination Of The Government Digital And Data Profession Capability And Success Profiles Frameworks. We Will Assess Your Experience, Technical Skills And The Following Behaviours During The Assessment Process:

Working Together

Managing a quality service

Communicating and influencing

Developing self and others

Changing and improving

A diverse panel will review your application against the Person Specification above. Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a 1-hour panel interview, which may include a technical test/task, held via video conference.

Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on:

“Overseeing testing across multiple teams and throughout the entire software development lifecycle, demonstrating both technical and test leadership.”

“Design, build, and maintain automated test frameworks for UI and API testing using tools such as Postman, Selenium, Cypress, or Playwright.”

“A collaborative mindset, mentoring, coaching, growing and inspiring others to adopt holistic testing practices.”

The Panel Will Be Conducting a Sift On The Following Criteria From The Person Specification Above In Addition To Some Of The Pre-sift Criteria:

“Practical experience with non-functional testing (Performance, Security, Accessibility) and related tooling.”

“Strong understanding of shift-left principles, including CI/CD pipelines.”

“Practical experience of designing and implementing various test types to deliver comprehensive test coverage.”

“Applied automation and testing best practices, improving frameworks and delivery pipelines.”

Candidates who do not demonstrate examples/details of their experience of the requirements stated under the Person Specification above in their Cover Letter will be rejected on this basis.

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. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in a new window) checks.

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in a new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This Job Is Broadly Open To The Following Groups:

UK nationals

nationals of the Republic of Ireland

nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK

nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)

nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)

individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020

Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Diversity and Inclusion

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 (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

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 : SSCL Recruitment Enquiries Team

Email : moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk

Telephone : 0345 241 5359

Recruitment team

Email : moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.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 SSCL (Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@gov.sscl.com) 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/

https://www.jobtrain.co.uk/justicedigital/Job/JobDetail?JobId=944