Quality Assurance Lead

### Posting ID
PIP11393

On behalf of the MOD , we are looking for a Quality Assurance Lead (Inside IR35) for a 6 month hybrid contract based up to 2 days per week in London or Corsham.

PLEASE NOTE: 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.

QA Lead

You'll be joining a central DevOps Practice that helps accelerate the delivery of software, applications and infrastructure across a broad range of programmes. This role offers a rare opportunity to shape how Quality Assurance is delivered at scale, influence standards and ways of working, and help drive the future of testing and assurance across the MOD.

This is more than a QA role. It's an opportunity to lead the adoption of modern testing practices, influence delivery at scale and help define what good looks like for Quality Assurance across Defence.

We're looking for an experienced QA Lead to drive modern testing and assurance practices across a diverse portfolio of digital products, platforms and services.

As the Quality Assurance SME within our DevOps Practice, you'll help teams move beyond traditional testing approaches by embedding automation, continuous testing and assurance into modern delivery pipelines. You'll work across multiple programmes, assessing maturity, identifying improvement opportunities and helping teams deliver with greater confidence , quality and speed.

This is a role for someone who enjoys driving change, influencing senior stakeholders and helping delivery teams adopt better ways of working.

What You'll Do

- Lead on Quality Assurance strategy, standards and best practice.
- Champion modern test automation using tools such as Playwright, Selenium and similar frameworks.
- Help teams embed testing into CI/CD pipelines and DevOps delivery practices.
- Assess delivery teams and programmes, identifying opportunities to improve quality, assurance and automation.
- Coach and mentor teams in modern testing techniques and approaches.
- Develop reusable patterns, guidance and standards that can be adopted across multiple programmes.
- Influence quality assurance practices beyond individual projects and contribute to wider organisational standards.

What We're Looking For

- Extensive experience leading QA, testing or test automation within complex delivery environments.
- Strong hands-on experience with automated testing frameworks.
- Experience integrating testing into CI/CD pipelines and modern DevOps practices.
- A track record of driving change and improving testing maturity across teams.
- Strong stakeholder engagement and influencing skills.
- The ability to balance strategic thinking with pragmatic delivery.

Desirable

- Experience within Defence, Government or highly regulated environments.
- Knowledge of cloud-native delivery and modern engineering practices.
- Experience defining organisational testing standards or communities of practice.
- Previous experience working with Foundry products, services or delivery teams.

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, the MOD 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 MOD 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.