Head of Quality Engineering
Location: Swansea, Bristol, Birmingham (Garretts Green), Nottingham, Yeading (Hayes), Oldham (Chadderton), Leeds, Newcastle upon Tyne
Salary: £69,501 per annum
Vacancy Type: Permanent, Full Timeor Part Time
Closing Date: Monday 29th June 2026
The Head of Quality Engineering will provide organisational leadership to foster a cohesive quality engineering strategy across the DVSA. They will build capability across the profession and delivery teams, ensuring teams are equipped to support the strategic direction and deliver high-quality digital services.
This role will be responsible for leadership across a variety of quality and testing professionals within the organisation. The role holder will provide Leadership, guidance, coaching and mentorship to teams to adopt and embed modern quality engineering practices that support the delivery of digital services that are critical to the DVSA.
They will advocate for early, sustainable quality practices and a proactive, quality-first, risk-aware engineering culture, ensuring quality is embedded throughout the software development lifecycle. The role holder will be instrumental in influencing quality metrics, governance, and the continuous optimisation of quality engineering strategies, test approaches, and delivery practices.
Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:
· Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your base salary.
· 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays a privilege day for the King’s birthday
· Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.
Job description
The role requires a high level of strategic thinking, technical understanding, capability building, and the ability to influence organisational change, enabling teams to adopt scalable, modern approaches to quality across DVSA.
Your responsibilities will include, but aren’t limited to:
· Demonstrate leadership by providing influence, direction, and guidance to staff to support the delivery of organisational objectives.
· Define and execute a long-term quality and testing strategy, ensuring alignment with business objectives, user needs and DVSA’s digital strategy.
· Guide and influence testing and quality engineering practices across product teams, promoting consistent and scalable approaches to quality.
· Drive the integration of quality engineering practices at every stage of the software development lifecycle, ensuring quality is embedded from design through to delivery and operation.
· Promote the adoption of automation and scalable quality frameworks that support efficient, reliable and repeatable delivery across product teams.
· Shape and refine testing and quality engineering design principles, governance, metrics, and reporting, ensuring clear visibility of quality across DVSA services.
· Establish a strong direction and a persuasive future vision for quality engineering and digital service assurance across DVSA.
· Manage and engage with honesty and integrity, acting as a role model and upholding the reputation of the Agency, Department and Civil Service.
Great line management is important to us as an organisation, and we will equip and support line managers to develop the skills they need. We aim to empower line managers to create teams where people can flourish and deliver excellent outcomes for the public.
For further information on the role, please read the attached role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.
Open Sessions: Would you like to find out more about the role, the team and what it’s like to work in our department? If so, we are organising an open session where you can virtually 'meet the team' on Thursday 25th Juneat 16:30-17:00. Sign up here
Person specification
Required experience:
To be successful in this role you will need to have the following experience:
· Strong strategic leadership experience within software testing, quality engineering or digital delivery, with the ability to define and implement organisational quality strategies that support the delivery of reliable, secure and user-focused digital services.
· Demonstrable experience of modern quality engineering practices, including test automation, continuous testing, risk-based quality approaches and the integration of quality throughout the software development lifecycle.
· A strong technical understanding of software delivery practices, tooling and engineering approaches, combined with the ability to guide teams in adopting scalable and sustainable quality practices.
· Proven ability to lead, influence and develop professional capability across teams, fostering a collaborative and quality-focused culture.
· Experience of working with senior stakeholders, delivery teams and cross-functional leaders, providing strategic advice and driving continuous improvement in quality practices.
· Strong communication, leadership and decision-making skills, with the ability to represent the organisation, provide expert advice and respond effectively to emerging risks, operational challenges and evolving technology landscapes.
To Apply
If you feel you are a suitable candidate and would like to work for DVSA, please click apply to be redirected to our website to complete your application.
Job Types: Full-time, Part-time, Permanent
Pay: £69,501.00 per year
Work Location: In person
