Quality Engineering Manager in Gloucester

UCAS is at the heart of connecting people to higher education. We provide application services for UK universities and colleges as well as delivering a wide range of research, consultancy and advisory services to schools, colleges, careers services, professional bodies and employers. We’re a successful and fast‑growing organisation, which helps hundreds of thousands of people every year. We are committed to delivering a first‑class service to all of our customers — they are at the heart of everything we do.

The Digital Services business unit focuses on leveraging data science, technology, and enterprise architecture to enhance UCAS' digital products and services. The unit is dedicated to developing and improving customer‑centric digital solutions, ensuring seamless and secure online experiences for all users. By providing insightful data and analysis, often made available to anyone with free‑to‑use intuitive dashboards, Digital Services empowers the Higher Education sector and those interested in the sector with valuable information to make informed decisions.

As a member of the Product Engineering Leadership team, the Quality engineering role will lead the technical testing aspects of the QA strategy, serving as the technical authority for quality engineering, reliability, and testability across the admissions transformation programme. This includes:

• Working with Architecture, Platform engineering and MDTs to create reference architectures, guardrails, and golden paths for test automation, CI/CD, quality gates, observability, and resilience.
• Leading a small technically focused team of Quality engineers to adopt an automation first strategy for all Quality Assurance assets on the programme.
• Working with strategic partners to deliver high quality, resilient and scalable products and services in line with the programme plan.
• Collaborating with the existing Quality Assurance team to ensure a cohesive, collaborative over‑arching QA/QE strategy drives quality across all UCAS products and services.

Key accountabilities:

• Acts as the technical authority for Quality and Reliability for the Admissions Transformation programme.
• Accountable for producing the overall QA strategy for the programme.
• Lead a team of 3-5 quality engineers to build automation assets and execute the QA plans for the programme, reporting on progress using appropriate DORA metrics.

Skills, Qualifications, And Experience:

• Significant demonstrable experience (5+ years) in a similar management and leadership position with specific emphasis on establishing and building Quality Engineering practices.
• Broad experience in all aspects of quality engineering, automation, planning, execution and reporting across the whole product development lifecycle.
• Experience of line management of a team of technical Quality engineers/SDETs.
• Experience of working as part of a software/product engineering leadership team.
• Passionate about the technical engineering aspects of Quality Assurance, with a specific focus on setting and delivering strategy for automation frameworks and AI.
• Ability to lead without authority, confident and credible with Senior stakeholders.
• Prior experience within software engineering/development roles with a demonstrable passion for the Quality engineering aspects of the craft.

Package:

• Salary up to £70,000.
• Purpose‑driven work in a charity‑led organisation connecting people to education and opportunity.
• Internal training, mentoring, and access to industry‑recognised certifications through our development academies.
• Hybrid working model built on trust and flexibility, with a 35‑hour week and flexible contracts.
• 30 days annual leave, 3 concessionary days over Christmas, bank holidays, and the option to purchase additional leave.
• Everyday wellbeing support through Perkbox, offering discounts and wellness tools.
• Onsite facilities including a subsidised gym, café, and free parking at our Cheltenham office.
• Inclusive culture supported by employee networks, wellbeing champions, and Mental Health First Aiders.
• Recognition and reward through our quarterly employee scheme and an ex‑gratia bonus for going above and beyond.

Studies have shown that some groups of people are less likely to apply to a role unless they tick every box. At UCAS we recognise that talent comes in various forms and we are committed to delivering a fair and equitable recruitment process where applicants have an equal opportunity to demonstrate their skills. If you are interested in this vacancy, but don’t necessarily meet every single point on the job description, please apply.