Lead test engineer

Band 8a · Test engineer · 553 job evaluation points

UK GDaD PCF level: Lead test engineer

Most often performed at Civil Service grade SEO or G7 or G6.

A lead test engineer sets the strategy for test engineering and influences test engineering practices across a broad area. They develop, monitor and evaluate quality engineering standards, and make strategic improvements to quality engineering in the organisation.
At this role level, you will:
lead a broad area in technical tooling, engineering approaches and test types and techniques to address risks early
define engineering standards, enabling others to follow them
lead and guide teams in quality engineering strategies and practices
lead and guide test engineers
escalate risks to senior stakeholders
lead and implement continuous testing, identifying opportunities to test earlier

Contains public sector information from the UK Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework (https://understand-digital-data-roles-skills.service.gov.uk/), licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. © Crown copyright.

Responsibilities

Set the test engineering strategy and standards across a broad area, including continuous testing in delivery pipelines.
Lead and guide test engineers and teams in quality engineering practice.
Make sure testing of regulated and safety-critical software meets the required standards and is traceable.
Escalate quality and safety risks to senior product, clinical, and supplier leads.
Find opportunities to test earlier and more often, and measure the effect on quality.

Skills

Skill	Expected level	What this level means
Communicating between the technical and non-technicalUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: mediate between people and strengthen relationships, adopting the appropriate communication method with stakeholders at all levels manage stakeholder expectations and moderate difficult discussions about high risk and complex topics, even within constrained timescales speak on behalf of, and represent the community to, large audiences inside and outside the organisation
Designing and executing testsUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: set standards and influence organisational decisions for test types, techniques, design and execution coach others in test types, techniques, design and execution advocate for continuous improvement and refinement of test types and techniques make strategic decisions on new or improved test types and techniques used in your area
Managing, reporting and resolving defectsUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: lead and coach others in improving test and defect management processes support others in assessing complex and challenging defects across the organisation lead and coach others in using defect patterns and trends to make tactical and strategic recommendations influence improvements to quality processes, informed by defect patterns and trends
Test analysisUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: lead and guide multiple teams in test analysis, ensuring it is implemented early in the life cycle advocate for risk-based analysis to drive improvements across many teams set standards and principles for test analysis across the organisation
Test and quality planningUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: create and manage multiple quality testing plans, approaches and strategies lead and guide multiple teams in adopting quality testing strategy advocate for early quality testing involvement in organisational delivery processes guide teams across an organisation in optimising quality testing approaches, plans and strategies by using appropriate data
Test engineeringUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: establish and lead test engineering practices, standards and behaviours influence and guide test engineering technology and tool choices across the organisation advocate for the adoption and use of appropriate testing solutions, ensuring alignment with organisational goals and quality objectives
Understanding health and care servicesThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: analyse how a service fits into care pathways across organisations work with clinicians, care staff, and patients to shape digital services explain the effect of digital decisions on care, safety, and staff workload
Clinical risk managementThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: lead hazard identification and risk assessment for a product or change write and maintain hazard logs and clinical safety case reports agree risk controls with product teams and check that they work advise teams on applying clinical risk management standards
Information governance and data protectionThis reference	Working (2)	You can: apply data protection principles to your work contribute to data protection impact assessments handle information requests and records correctly
Health data interoperabilityThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: design and build integrations using FHIR, HL7 version 2, and messaging patterns write and profile FHIR resources and implementation guides resolve complex mapping and data quality issues between systems
Medical device software regulationThis reference	Working (2)	You can: follow a software life cycle process that meets medical device standards produce the records that such a process requires
People managementThis reference	Working (2)	You can: supervise day-to-day work and give feedback take part in recruitment and induction hold regular one-to-one conversations

Typical qualifications and experience

Extensive experience of leading test engineering for complex services.

Band 8a outline

Knowledge: Expert knowledge of a discipline and its management.
Autonomy: Interprets organisational policy for a service; sets the team's direction.
Scope: A service area or a discipline across the organisation.
Leadership: Manages a team, or leads a discipline without line management.
Accountability: A service area, its staff, and its budget.

Job evaluation (illustrative)

Factor	Level	Level summary	Points
Communication and relationship skills	5	Gives highly complex or contentious information needing developed persuasion and negotiation, presents to large groups, or communicates where there are significant barriers to acceptance.	45
Knowledge, training, and experience	7	Highly developed specialist knowledge across the range of the specialism (master's level or equivalent).	196
Analytical and judgemental skills	5	Judgements on highly complex facts or situations needing analysis, interpretation, and comparison of options.	60
Planning and organisational skills	4	Plans a broad range of complex activities or strategies, adjusting them as needed.	42
Physical skills	2	Skills gained through practice, such as standard keyboard use or driving.	15
Responsibility for patient and client care	1	Helps patients, clients, or relatives during incidental contact.	4
Responsibility for policy and service development	4	Implements policy and develops policy or services for a service or several areas.	32
Responsibility for financial and physical resources	1	Takes personal care of equipment and resources used in own work.	5
Responsibility for people	3	Manages a group of staff day to day, teaches core or specialist training, or gives core HR advice.	21
Responsibility for information resources	5	Designs and develops major information systems, or runs information systems for several services as the main duty.	34
Responsibility for research and development	3	Carries out research or development within formal programmes as a main duty.	21
Freedom to act	5	Works within general policies, and in most cases decides how to interpret them.	45
Physical effort	1	Sitting, standing, and walking, with little physical effort.	3
Mental effort	4	Frequent prolonged concentration, or occasional intense concentration.	18
Emotional effort	1	Rare exposure, or occasional indirect exposure, to distressing circumstances.	5
Working conditions	2	Occasional unpleasant conditions, frequent travel or outdoor work, or near-continuous screen use on most days.	7
Total (Band 8a: 540 to 584)			553

The UK GDaD PCF suggests SEO to G6 for this level, which maps to Band 7, the same band as the senior test engineer. This reference places it at Band 8a, because it sets test engineering strategy and standards across a broad area.