Quality Engineering Lead at Ministry of Justice, UK Wide, 6 months, £Contract Rate

On behalf of The Ministry of Justice, we are looking for a Quality Engineering Lead (Inside IR35) for a 6 month contract based Hybrid in any UK MoJ office nationally (office location will be nearest MoJ hub).

About the Role

We are seeking two experienced Quality Engineering Leads to help establish and accelerate the Quality Engineering function within Probation Digital. You will play a key role in delivering the Quality Framework, defining standards, governance, tooling approaches and team-level templates to create a consistent and scalable approach to quality across services. This role will support the shift from fragmented testing practices to a structured, risk-based and proactive quality model.

You will be joining a department at a pivotal stage in its Quality Engineering journey. Currently, testing practices vary significantly across teams, with no consistent framework, limited visibility of quality metrics, and testing often occurring late in the delivery lifecycle. There is a strong appetite across teams to improve quality, collaboration, and ways of working, alongside pockets of good practice that can be scaled. As part of this transformation, you will play a key role in establishing a shared Quality Framework, embedding consistent standards, and supporting teams to move towards a more proactive, "shift-left " approach to quality, ultimately enabling safer, more reliable delivery across services.

As a Quality Engineering Lead, your main responsibilities will be to:

• Define and implement organisation-wide Quality Engineering strategy, standards, governance, frameworks and best practices, working with the Head of Test to ensure robust, scalable and secure testing methodologies are adopted.
• Establish and oversee quality metrics, KPIs and reporting to drive continuous improvement and provide visibility of quality across teams.
• Coach and mentor teams in holistic, shift-left testing practices, embedding quality throughout the software development lifecycle.
• Lead and influence functional and non-functional testing approaches across a range of domains including API, Web UI, ETL, Mobile, Desktop, SaaS and Infrastructure testing.
• Define and promote test engineering best practices, including source control, object-oriented programming principles, SOLID principles and continuous testing strategies.
• Drive technology, automation and tooling decisions, advancing the adoption of CI/CD pipeline testing and automated quality assurance practices across the organisation.
• Identify organisational testing risks and dependencies, fostering a culture of learning, experimentation and continuous improvement aligned to business objectives.
• Provide thought leadership on Quality Engineering and support the growth of the QE capability through recruitment, role design and interview activities.

Essential:

• Experience defining and implementing Quality Engineering, Test Strategy or Test Governance across multiple teams or programmes.
• Strong background in test automation and modern Quality Engineering practices including shift-left and continuous testing.
• Experience integrating automated testing within CI/CD pipelines and DevOps delivery environments.
• Experience establishing quality metrics, reporting and KPIs to drive continuous improvement.
• Experience coaching and influencing delivery teams to embed quality throughout the software development lifecycle.
• Strong understanding of functional and non-functional testing methodologies across complex enterprise environments.
• SC Clearance is an essential requirement for this role, as a minimum you must be willing & eligible to undergo checks. Please note, due to the exceptional requirements of this position (short-term nature of this role and speed at which we require a postholder in situ) preference may be given to candidates who meet all of the essential criteria and hold active security clearance.

Desirable:

• Experience leading a Quality Engineering or Test Transformation initiative.
• Experience working within Government, regulated or large-scale enterprise environments.
• Technical understanding of software engineering principles, source control and object-oriented development.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident 

As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, MOJ guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

Armed Forces Covenant

The Ministry of Justice guarantees to interview veterans or spouses / partners of military personnel who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of ex-military candidates / military spouses or partners, who meet all of the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different.