Job Advert
In June 2025, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care introduced two key frameworks: the Population Health Framework and the Service Renewal Framework (SRF). The SRF sets out an ambitious vision to drive innovation and enable more integrated delivery across Scotland’s health and care services. As part of this transformation, NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) and NHS Education for Scotland (NES) will come together to form a new organisation: Public Services Delivery Scotland in April 2026. The new organisation will play a pivotal role in supporting the renewal and long-term sustainability of health and care services across Scotland.
To learn more about the new organisation, please read the public consultation paper, NHS Delivery – A New National Delivery Organisation, available on the Scottish Government website
Flexible Location: NES is a remote-friendly employer with staff based throughout Scotland. We support office-based and hybrid working arrangements. We welcome conversations about alternative working patterns—please get in touch during the application process to discuss.
Work Pattern: Fixed Term, Full Time, 37 hours per week
As from 1/4/26, the Agenda for Change full-time working week will be reducing from 37 to 36 hours per week. Part time hours will be reduced pro-rata. However, there will be a corresponding increase in the hourly rate so that pay will not be affected
Fixed-term or Secondment** until 31 March 2027
**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.
NES Technology Service has created a strategic programme for the transformation of digital based services to allow NES to become a leading digital organisation in Scottish Health, digital by design and fully aligned with the Scottish government’s technology and data strategies.
Our Technology
We work in service of improved outcomes across education, training, workforce, health and care for the public sector in Scotland through the provision of effective, safe, secure, and innovative technology products, services, and platforms. Using modern cloud-based technology, we deliver sustainable products and platforms, sustaining services now and into the future.
The Opportunity
This is a unique opportunity that supports impact, value, and innovation in technology delivery through a focus on quality to facilitate person-centred and fit for population technology platforms and digital services. Our focus on building careers, lives, and sustaining the health and social care workforce through our people, partnerships, and performance is core to our values and supporting practices.
We are a growing division, with colleagues based in other digital, data, and technology specialisms, core functions like business operations and assurance, and specialities like medicine and workforce education. Work is completed in-person, online, and on site, flexible to achieve objectives.
You will need to bring together your expertise in systems design and complex information analysis with knowledge of quality governance in NHS Scotland and policy in the Public Sector to develop the practice methodology.
You’ll engage with colleagues and partners at all levels of the Directorate, organisation, and with external partners, commercial suppliers, and community members to complete your work.
We hold regular online and in-person training and professional development events, a yearly organisational conference and Learning at Work Week, and other specialist knowledge exchange and community of practice events with the wider NHS and Scotland health and care ecosystem.
Do you WANT to make a meaningful contribution to health and social care in Scotland by applying your skills and expertise to enrich technology delivery quality?
Do you HAVE substantive experience working at organizational, regional, or national levels, supporting the translation of policy and guidance to practice?
Do you KNOW HOW to develop a lifecycle quality approach that strengthens governance, impact, and enhancement in technology delivery?
Do you KNOW HOW to understand and translate systems complexity across people, process, and technology into evidenced, practical working steps?
Do you THRIVE in complex environments integrating organisational, professional, and team capabilities at person, practice, and purpose levels to achieve our objectives?
Working within the Quality Technology Practice, you will have the opportunity to use your skills and experience in a key foundational leadership role for this multi-faceted programme of work.
Does this sound like you?
What We Love to See
Specialist Leads in Quality Technology Practice whether coming from backgrounds in Systems/Service Design, Quality Improvement, Business Analysis – and more offer a broad range of skills and experience, if you can offer some or all of these, we’d love you to apply:
- Substantive experience in designing and delivering to quality standards, ideally within technical or regulated environments like health, social care, clinical practice, education, the environment, or energy
- Expertise in quality and improvement, systems / service design, and/or business analysis methods and tools including qualitative discovery
- Skills in working across varied stakeholder disciplines such as senior leadership and managers, professional groups, developers and designers, NHS Boards, commercial and community partners, and Scottish Government
- Comprehensive knowledge of Quality and Clinical Governance principles and understanding of Public Sector governance, technology, and design standards
- Strengths in systems-design, complex information analysis, evidence-based framework design, mapping, strategic thinking, communicating information, and people-process-technology (sociotechnical systems)
- Communicating workstream outputs to a range of audiences in a clear, concise insightful, and actionable manner
- Well-developed digital application skills and experience in analysis, digital collaboration, and presentation design
- Excellent communication and cross-discipline translation skills with the ability to handle complex, proprietary, and sensitive discussions
- Experience working as an individual contributor and developing practice methodology, frameworks, and training materials
- 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 means considering the diverse needs, perspectives, and backgrounds of everyone in Scotland. We are focused on hiring the very best talent and actively encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds. Our aim to ensure that everyone is treated fairly, with respect, and has a positive recruitment experience—regardless of the outcome.
We welcome applications from all under-represented groups, including racially minoritised people and disabled people. It is not essential to be in a Quality Technology Practice Specialist Lead role right now—you may be returning from a career break (e.g., maternity, paternity, caring) or coming from another field. Your experiences can bring a fresh perspective to our work.
If you are considering applying and would like to discuss the opportunity, any adjustments or alternative work patterns, please contact Ijeoma Azodo (nes.nts-quality@nhs.scot) quoting the Job role and reference number in the title.
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.
All applicants who are shortlisted for interview will be contacted by e-mail.
In person OR online interviews including a presentation will take place on Wednesday 25th March 2026. The presentation topic will be sent to candidates selected for interview
Please note the following
- Candidate applications are manually shortlisted for interview selection
- During the interview, the use of AI and/or other real-time, audio / visual search, prompt, translation, or other candidate support aides (i.e. smart glasses, smart ear buds, etc.) is not permitted
- Any external support provided to the candidate for application submission (i.e. AI, application writer) must be declared
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.
- Please be advised that if you are successful in being offered the role following the recruitment process, you will be expected to attend the office prior to your start date to complete face-to-face pre-employment checks. If you require any adjustments to support this, please let us know.
- To work in the United Kingdom, there is a legal requirement for an individual to demonstrate that they have the relevant permission to work in the country. This permission is, without exception, granted by the UK Visa and Immigrations Service.
As part of the pre-employment checks for a preferred candidate, NHS Scotland Boards will check your entitlement to work in the UK. It can be evidenced through a number of routes including specific types of visa as well as EU settled and pre-settled status. To find out more about these routes of permission, please refer to the GOV.UK website here.
For specific types of post, if you do not have the necessary eligibility to work in the UK, it might be possible (though not guaranteed) to secure sponsorship via a UK Skilled Worker/Health & Care Worker Visa. However, this is only possible if the employer is a licenced Sponsor, and if the post does not fall below the current minimum salary threshold or ‘going rate’. Further information on these criteria can be found here.
It is ESSENTIAL that you have checked that you either already have an appropriate right to work in the UK or that the post would be eligible to be sponsored BEFORE submitting your application form.
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