QA Tester in Sheffield

Pay of £44,447 plus 28.97% employer pension contributions, hybrid working, flexible hours, and great work-life balance.

We are looking for a QA Tester for our Benefit Supporting Services team to join our community of tech experts in DWP Digital. We are using fresh ideas and leading-edge tech to build and maintain digital solutions that will be used by nearly every person in the UK, every day and at key moments in their lives. DWP is the UK's largest government department. We help people into work and make payments worth over £195bn a year to support and empower millions of people.

What skills, knowledge and experience will you need?

• Proven experience testing critical batch processes and interface components in legacy environments.
• Skilled at ensuring data flows and processing behaviour remain reliable after change, with the ability to spot and mitigate risks such as data issues, processing failures and interface errors.
• Able to plan, design and carry out system and acceptance testing across both functional and non-functional requirements.
• Confident maintaining clear traceability between tests, requirements and defects, and capable of leading test delivery to meet expectations on quality, timelines and cost.
• Strong problem-solving ability with a focus on understanding root causes, identifying improvements and providing evidence-based recommendations.
• Comfortable analysing findings and presenting them clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Able to work effectively within a small, focused team and support others to build their skills and confidence.
• Willing to share knowledge, lessons learned and practical insights to help mentor and develop junior colleagues.
• Excellent communication skills, able to clearly report on testing progress, risks and results.
• Comfortable working with delivery teams to understand requirements, discuss testability and ensure shared understanding across stakeholders.
• Demonstrable experience testing VME, mainframe, or other large integrated legacy applications.
• Strong ability to understand and work within complex and business-critical systems built on legacy technology stacks such as COBOL.

You and your role

Working in Benefit Supporting Services, you would spend your days making sure the systems that support millions of people keep running smoothly. A lot of your time is spent getting hands-on with our mainframe and VME applications, testing changes before they go anywhere near live service. You look at what’s changing, figure out the risks and make sure everything is solid, reliable, and behaves the way it should.

You’ll be in constant contact with developers, business analysts and other testers, chatting through updates, ironing out defects, and helping shape improvements. Some days you’re planning out what needs to be tested; other days you’re deep in the detail, working through batch processes and interfaces to make sure nothing unexpected pops up. With a shift-left mindset, you’re involved early so issues get caught before they become problems.

You’ll also play a part in helping others grow, sharing what you know, supporting newer testers and sometimes taking on line management or mentoring duties. Along the way, you document what you’ve done so the next person picking things up has everything they need. Overall, it’s a mix of problem-solving, teamwork, and protecting services that really matter, all while helping shape and modernise the legacy platforms the department relies on.

Details:

• Location: You’ll join us in our brilliant digital hub in Birmingham, Blackpool, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle or Sheffield, whichever is more convenient for you.
• Hybrid Working: We work a hybrid model - you’ll spend some time working at home and some time collaborating face to face in a hub.
• Pay: We offer competitive pay of £44,447.
• Pension: You’ll get a brilliant civil service pension with employer contributions worth 28.97%, worth over £12,000 per year.
• Holidays: A generous leave package starting at 26 days rising to 31 days over time. You can also take up to 3 extra days off a month on flexi-time. You’ll also get all the usual public holidays.

We have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:

• Flexible working including flexible hours and flex-friendly policies.
• Time off volunteering and charitable giving.
• Bring your authentic self to work with 'I Can Be Me in DWP'.
• Discounts and savings on shopping, fun days out and more.
• Interest-free loans to buy a bike or a season ticket, so it’s even easier for you to get to work and start making a difference.
• Professional development, coaching, mentoring and career progression opportunities.

And we have an award-winning environment and culture:

• DWP have been recognised as 2024 Diversity Employer of the Year at the Computing Women in Tech Excellence awards.
• Diverse and Inclusive Leadership at Digital Leaders Awards 2024.
• Commended as Best Place to Work in Digital category in the Computing Digital Technology Leaders awards 2025.
• Recognised as one of the Best Public Sector Employers at 2025 Women In Tech Employer Awards.

Process: We know your time is valuable, so our application and selection process is just two stages:

• Apply: complete your application on Civil Service Jobs. There’ll be full instructions when you click through.
• Interview: a single stage interview online.

CLICK APPLY for more information and to start your application.