Department for Education
Senior Test Engineer (up to £81,736)
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Bristol, Coventry, Darlington, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Sheffield
Please note – Bristol and Nottingham currently have site controls in place. Therefore, this location option is only available to existing DfE employees already assigned to this office location.
Job Summary
As a senior test engineer, you will be leading the quality assurance effort within a multi-discipline development team and delivering one or more programmes of work. You will drive the test engineering capability of the squad, by providing technical leadership, mentoring, coaching, and career development.
You will be responsible for implementing the Test Strategy for manual and automated testing of digital services with a view to maximise test automation. These strategies will align with wider government digital standards to ensure the services are compliant and accessible to all.
You will contribute to the Testing Community across the department, help develop junior test engineers by providing technical guidance and deliver our strategic vision by building and maintaining strong links with other Test Engineers across other Government departments, to influence standard methodology and share insights.
If You Are Successful, You Could Be
- Working in Enterprise Data for Insight (EDfI), responsible for ensuring the quality and reliability of Data services developed to support policy teams, analysts, delivery colleagues and external partners. Helping to deliver better evidence-based decisions, design more effective services, and ultimately improve outcomes for children, young people and those who support them. As a Grade 7 Test Engineer in EDfI you will be using your coding and analysis skills to plan, design, implement and manage testing within Projects. The team has already delivered award-winning automation solutions and continues to innovate and develop testing techniques (posts available in all advertised locations except Bristol).
- On the Apprenticeship Service, our test team are responsible for ensuring the quality of the hundreds of .NET applications that make up our award-winning digital service and support the payment of over £2.7 billion of government funding for apprenticeship training provision in England and Wales. The work involves in-depth regression, automation, performance and accessibility testing, along with contributing to a diverse and active community that is committed to the continuous development and improvement of both our services and people (posts available in all advertised locations).
- Working in the Solution Delivery Team. We work on central repeatable tools that will form the backbone of the Departments services going forward. It’s an exciting area to work in with an established team (posts available in all advertised locations except Bristol).
Please note that Bristol location is only available for 2 posts.
Job Description
As a senior test engineer, you will:
- Lead and work collaboratively with other members of your integrated delivery team, to develop a cohesive service.
- Collaborate across disciplines to ensure that services help our stakeholders to achieve their aims, meet DfE standards and help meet users’ needs.
- Manage obstacles and escalations of key delivery issues through appropriate governance.
- Define the appropriate level of documentation to support testing efforts within the within the team and wider department.
- Have expert knowledge of coding Test Automation Frameworks from scratch that provides sufficient automated coverage for a project.
- Have up to date knowledge of the latest best practices and standards to set direction for the team. This would include appropriate coding standards and CICD processes for the automated testing.
- Support other testers in the Community by coaching and setting direction.
- Define and uphold test status reporting within the team, via dashboards or other appropriate means so that test status is clear to the team.
- Input into the development of wider standardised automated testing frameworks, tools, and processes within the community.
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As a Senior Test Engineer, You Will
- Lead and work collaboratively with other members of your integrated delivery team, to develop a cohesive service.
- Collaborate across disciplines to ensure that services help our stakeholders to achieve their aims, meet DfE standards and help meet users’ needs.
- Manage obstacles and escalations of key delivery issues through appropriate governance.
- Define the appropriate level of documentation to support testing efforts within the within the team and wider department.
- Have expert knowledge of coding Test Automation Frameworks from scratch that provides sufficient automated coverage for a project.
- Have up to date knowledge of the latest best practices and standards to set direction for the team. This would include appropriate coding standards and CICD processes for the automated testing.
- Support other testers in the Community by coaching and setting direction.
- Define and uphold test status reporting within the team, via dashboards or other appropriate means so that test status is clear to the team.
- Input into the development of wider standardised automated testing frameworks, tools, and processes within the community.
Person specification
Essential Criteria
- Experience leading testing activities in quality-focused teams, including articulating test strategies, priorities, and outcomes to stakeholders with varying levels of technical understanding at all stages of a project.
- Experience in designing, implementing, and maintaining test artefacts (e.g. test plans, scripts, data sets) tailored to the risk profile of products or systems including leading the design, development, and execution of test scenarios, ensuring alignment with user needs and business requirements.
- Experience in defect analysis and resolution, including tracking, triaging, and managing defects through to closure using tools such as Azure DevOps, JIRA, or similar.
- Experience in creating and maintaining test automation frameworks CI/CD pipelines, setting and enforcing coding standards in Object-Oriented languages such as C# or Python, including code reviews and mentoring peers.
- Demonstrated ability to coach and mentor test engineers, promoting best practices in test engineering, automation, and quality assurance.
Desirable Criteria
- Experience with operating within Azure DevOps or similar cloud platform.
- Awareness of conducting and enabling non-functional testing such as Performance, Security and Accessibility; including test types, test tools, and standards.
- Appropriate software testing training such as ISTQB Foundation in Software Testing.
Desirable criteria will only be assessed at interview, in the event of a tie break situation, to make an informed decision.
Compensation and Benefits
Alongside your salary of £58,185, Department for Education contributes £16,856 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
Applicants currently holding a permanent post in the Civil Service should note that, if successful, their salary on appointment would be determined by the Department’s transfer / promotion policies.
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As a member of the DfE, you will be entitled to join the highly competitive Civil Service Pension Scheme, which many experts agree is one of the most generous in the UK.
You will have 25 days leave, increasing by 1 day every year to a maximum of 30 days after five years’ service. In addition, all staff receive the King’s Birthday privilege holiday and 8 days’ bank and public holidays.
We offer flexible working arrangements, such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
Most DfE employees will be working a hybrid pattern, spending at least 60% of their time in an office or work setting. Changes to these working arrangements are available in exceptional circumstances but must be agreed with the line manager and in line with the requirements of the role.
Travel to your primary office location will not be paid for by DfE, but costs for travel to an office which is not your main location will be covered.
As an organisation, which exists to support education and lifelong learning, we offer our staff excellent professional development opportunities.
Application Process
Application
To apply for this role, you will be required to provide a CV and Statement of Suitability.
Your CV should include details of your employment history, and the skills and experience gained in those roles. Your Statement of Suitability (max 1250 words) should demonstrate how your experience meets the essential criteria listed above.
Sift
We will use your CV and statement to assess your suitability for the role togehter against the essential criteria listed in the person specification section above.
To confirm, the maximum word count for the statement of suitability is 1250. Please adhere to this limit as anything over 1250 words will not be taken into account.
Interview
Those successful at sift will be invited to attend an interview.
Interviews will be on MS teams, which may be remote or from a DfE office - we will confirm which when you are invited to an interview.
The interview will be one hour and 15 minutes long and is made up of two parts.
Part 1 – Job related simulation - You will be given a scenario pertaining to the day-to-day activities of a senior test engineer and you will be asked to provide a high-level description of how you would tackle the activity. This will be assessed against the essential criteria.
Part 2 – Questions - At interview you will be asked questions to assess your experience in line with the essential criteria listed above.
Feedback
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview.
Timing
We expect to sift in week commencing 17 August 2026.
Interviews will likely take place in the weeks commencing 31 August, 7 September and 14 September 2026.
Once a provisional offer has been made, you will be invited to participate in a capability assessment to determine the value of the CBP allowance we can offer you. The assessment compares your skills against the Senior Test Engineer role described in DfE’s local Test Engineer Capability Framework, which is based on the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework.
Subject to your availability, we will aim to conduct the capability assessment and confirm the allowance offer to you within a week of the provisional offer being made.
This is a discretionary non-consolidated, non-pensionable allowance which, if awarded, is attached
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