The Defect Manager provides centralised control, governance, and reporting of all defects arising from UAT activities across Unity clusters.
Working in direct support of the Cluster UAT Test Manager, the role ensures defects are captured, triaged, prioritised, and resolved in line with business risk and programme timelines, while maintaining clear cross-cluster visibility and accountability. The role acts as the single source of truth for defect status, enabling informed decision-making on UAT progress, business readiness, and go-live confidence.
Security Requirement
- Active SC Clearance required
- Role involves working with data from secure HMRC pre-production environments
- Must comply with HMRC security and data protection policies
Accountable to
- Defect Governance & Control
- Own and manage the end-to-end defect lifecycle across all UAT clusters
- Establish and enforce defect management standards, workflows, and prioritisation criteria
- Ensure consistency in defect logging, categorisation, severity, and impact assessment
- Act as the central authority for defect quality and governance
Triage & Prioritisation
- Lead and coordinate cross-cluster defect triage sessions
- Ensure defects are correctly prioritised based on business impact and risk
- Ensure defects have clear ownership across TDP, suppliers, or business teams
- Challenge and validate severity and priority classifications and proposed fixes
- Escalate critical or systemic defects impacting business processes or UAT progression
- Provide a single, consolidated view of defects across UBS, HMRC, and OGDs
- Work closely with Cluster UAT Test Manager, TDP delivery teams, OGD Test Leads, and suppliers
- Ensure defect ownership is clear and enforced
- Ensure dependencies affecting resolution are actively managed
- Ensure blockers are escalated early
- Track defects through to closure and business acceptance
- Monitor fix progress, retest outcomes, re-open rates, and defect leakage
- Ensure timely retesting and validation
- Ensure alignment between fix delivery and UAT timelines
- Drive accountability for ageing defects and backlog reduction
Reporting & Insight
- Produce consolidated defect reporting including volumes, trends, severity distribution, backlog analysis, and business impact
- Provide forward-looking insight on risks to UAT completion and systemic quality issues
- Support the Cluster UAT Test Manager with decision-ready data for governance forums
- Own or contribute to defect-related RAID items
- Identify and manage high-risk defects, cross-cutting issues, and recurring patterns
- Provide clear escalation paths and ensure timely resolution of critical issues
Key Outcomes
- Defects are managed consistently and transparently across all clusters
- Clear end-to-end visibility of defect status and business impact
- Critical issues are identified and escalated early
- Defect backlog is controlled and aligned to UAT timelines
- Stakeholders have confidence in quality and readiness assessments
- Defect data supports informed go-live decisions
Experience Required
- Proven experience as a Defect Manager or Test Manager in large-scale programmes
- Strong experience managing high-volume defect environments across multiple teams
- Experience working across multiple business areas, organisations, and delivery partner models
- Strong understanding of defect lifecycle management, risk-based prioritisation, and UAT environments
- Strong analytical and reporting capability
- Experience in secure government environments (desirable)
