At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead quality engineering strategy and mentor teams to deliver high-quality digital services.
- Company: DVSA, a key player in digital service delivery with a focus on quality.
- Benefits: Generous pension contributions, 25+ days annual leave, and flexible working options.
- Other info: Empower teams to thrive and achieve excellent outcomes for the public.
- Why this job: Shape the future of quality engineering and make a real impact in digital services.
- Qualifications: Strong leadership in software testing and modern quality practices required.
The predicted salary is between 69501 - 69501 £ per year.
Location: Swansea, Bristol, Birmingham (Garretts Green), Nottingham, Yeading (Hayes), Oldham (Chadderton), Leeds, Newcastle upon Tyne
Salary: £69,501 per annum
Vacancy Type: Permanent, Full Time or 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.
Benefits:
- 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 and a privilege day for the King’s birthday.
- Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.
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.
Responsibilities:
- 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.
Person Specification:
Required 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.
Head of Quality Engineering in London employer: Energy Jobline ZR
As an employer, the DVSA offers a supportive and dynamic work environment where innovation in quality engineering is at the forefront. With a generous pension contribution of 28.97% and flexible working options, employees can enjoy a healthy work-life balance while contributing to critical digital services. The DVSA is committed to fostering professional growth through leadership development and mentorship, making it an excellent choice for those looking to advance their careers in a meaningful way.
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We think you need these skills to ace Head of Quality Engineering in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
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How to prepare for a job interview at Energy Jobline ZR
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Energy Jobline ZR uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
