Job Advert
Flexible Location: Based throughout Scotland, NES is a remote friendly employer supporting office and hybrid working. We’re happy to talk about how you want to work.
Work Pattern: Fixed Term, Full Time, 37 hours per week
Fixed-term or Secondment** until March 2026
**For NHS applicants, an NHS secondment will be offered in the first instance. For non-NHS applicants, a fixed-term or secondment would be considered.
You must have eligibility and entitlement to work in the UK which is required to be maintained throughout your period of employment.
Who We Are
NHS Education for Scotland (NES) is the national health board with statutory responsibilities to effect sustainable change through workforce development, education and training across the health and social care system in Scotland, while working at UK level with partner organisations.
The function of NES Technology Service is to develop and lead a programme of work and services that supports both the corporate functions that allow NES to work and deliver its strategic objective and to deliver against Scotland's Digital Health and Care Strategy.
The Opportunity
Test Lead NDP (National Digital Platform)
Do you have a passion for testing & quality?
Do you thrive on solving complex technical challenges and take pride in delivering flawless, high-quality software?
Do you have a passion for digging deep into cloud infrastructure, getting hands-on with the latest technologies, and ensuring every deployment is seamless ?
Do you love testing cutting-edge solutions, while being deeply involved in automation, performance testing, and cloud-based environments?
Do you take a proactive approach to improving QA processes and ensuring the entire development lifecycle is optimized for quality and speed?
Working within the National Digital Platform, you will play a pivotal role in leading the QA efforts across our cloud-based solutions, driving quality at every stage of the development lifecycle. You’ll not only get hands-on with the latest tools and technologies but also collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to ensure testing strategies are aligned with our technical goals. Your expertise will be crucial in delivering scalable, high-performance applications that meet both internal standards and external customer requirements.
As a key member of the team, you will also work directly with external providers and clients, acting as the bridge between their needs and our technical teams. You will lead testing initiatives that impact real-world use cases, ensuring seamless integration, compatibility, and performance across diverse environments. Your ability to collaborate, influence, and communicate complex technical details to non-technical stakeholders will be essential in delivering top-tier solutions that exceed expectations.
Does this sound like you?
What We Love to See
Test Leads offer a broad range of skills and experience, if you can offer some or all of these, we’d love you to apply:
• A passion for testing
• Knowledge of and hands on experience of cloud infrastructure
• Knowledge and experience of test tooling
• Ability to break down technical solutions and develop a model of the different components and how they work to facilitate discussion and test ideas
• Broad understanding of the key roles within an agile team and experience of developing relationships to work efficiently together to deliver excellence.
• Holistic thinker with experience in collaborating effectively across teams
• Demonstrate honesty, integrity, care and compassion when dealing with others, utilising tact and persuasion skills when necessary
• Ability to work on own initiative, to organise and prioritise own workloads, to meet strict deadlines
Benefits Which Matter
As a valued employee of NHS Scotland, you can enjoy an extensive range of benefits including:
• Life-work balance - with opportunities for flexible working and hybrid working
• Generous NHS pension scheme
• Annual incremental salary progression (up to the maximum of the salary band) plus annual NHS salary scale review
• Annual Leave - 27 Days increasing in line with service plus 8 days public holiday
• NHS discounts and more
Diversity and Inclusion
Developing a successful national service for Scotland is impossible without ensuring we consider the diverse needs, perspectives and backgrounds of everyone in Scotland in our work.
We are focused on hiring the very best talent available for NES, and actively encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds and aim to ensure everyone is treated fairly, with respect and has a positive recruitment experience – regardless of the outcome.
It’s not essential to be in a Test Lead role right now. You may be returning from a career break (e.g. maternity, paternity, caring for others) or returning after working in another field. Your experiences elsewhere can bring a fresh perspective to our work.
If you are considering applying and feel it would be helpful to discuss this initially, please contact john.hyslop@nhs.scot
Next Steps
**NHS candidates will be considered firstly on a secondment basis, and so are strongly encouraged to discuss this with their current NHS employer at the earliest opportunity, ideally prior to application.
Our recruitment process is currently 100% remote and if successful you would initially work remotely, working from our offices as operationally required.
All applicants who are shortlisted for interview will be contacted by e-mail.
Online interviews (including a presentation) will take place on Wednesday 27th November – Monday 2nd December 2024. The presentation topic will be sent to candidates selected for interview.
For further information please refer to the Job Information Pack below.
Unless otherwise stated the deadline for applications is 23:59 hours on the closing date. Please note, CVs will not be accepted.
If you have any queries regarding the NHS Scotland National Recruitment Portal or the recruitment process, please don't hesitate to contact our recruitment partners, the East Region Recruitment Service, at: EoS.ERRS@nhs.scot