Quality, Assurance and Testing (QAT) is embedded across all the Home Office’s business areas and we share specialist QAT services on a significant scale across the department and wider government. We manage approximately 250 concurrent projects, supported by around 500 people.

We use new technology, platforms and ways of working to help development teams meet user needs and make the delivery of services even better. We’re setting high standards and changing the way we test digital services in the Home Office. We always ask how we can make things better for users, who are at the centre of everything we do.

We provide risk-based test and quality assurance functions which support change programmes and the safe migration of new functionality through to live operations. This work partners ‘DevOps’ to maximise the automation and integration of testing throughout the service lifecycle. Continually developing our QA and Test approach means we can respond to specific user and business needs, supported by the TMMi framework.

The Quality, Standards and Assurance (QSA) and Risk function is also part of QAT. The team has a mission to improve quality and reduce risk for our users by increasing the focus on defined quality standards, with controls, measures and effective assurance practices. To do this, QSA is helping to build and implement a consistent “3 lines of defence” assurance model across Home Office DDaT. This means providing independent assurance across DDaT functions whilst maintaining important relationships with stakeholders including senior managers, technical experts, product teams, the Government Internal Audit Agency and external auditors.

We are based primarily in Croydon and London, with members of the team also located in Manchester and Glasgow.

What you could be doing

QAT Analysts

Our Analysts are typically part of a product team and work on the design and execution of testing practices across the development lifecycle. In a product team you may need to use a range of methods including exploratory testing, test automation and risk-based techniques.

Test Engineers

Engineers typically specialise in writing and implementing test code. This usually happens through the development of different test frameworks which help a product team to continuously run automated tests. These can include unit, component, integration and user interface features, which will often be tested in a continuous integration pipeline.

QAT Delivery Owners

Delivery Owners are typically responsible for technical leadership, test management and overall delivery of testing services. This means they are often accountable for setting the overall QA strategy and providing assurance for delivery teams and third parties.

Where there is a requirement, QAT can also provide other specialist roles, such as Performance Testing and Operational Acceptance Testing.

The benefits of working in the QAT Cluster in the Home Office

As well as the benefits generally available to Home Office staff and members of the Digital, Data and Technology Profession, there are number of other benefits to working in the QAT cluster.

Working in QAT means that you will be part of a thriving community with a senior management team committed to providing a productive and inclusive working environment. We know that people, their skills, capacity and commitment are the key to delivering and improving the QAT community.

Due to the range of work that QAT supports there are opportunities to develop broad domain experience and technical breadth across a range of technologies, platforms and delivery practices. This often includes working with other professional communities, subject matter experts and industry partners where QAT encourages innovation and developing new ways of working.

Personal development and training is supported by comprehensive learning resources, whether by self-learning or certified routes. Opportunities are widely available to transfer your skills into particular areas of interest.