Job Description

Ref Number

B01-05221

Professional Expertise

IT and Digital

Department

Vice-President (Operations) (B01)

Location

London

Working Pattern

Full time

Salary

68,284-76,244

Contract Type

Fixed-term

Working Type

Hybrid

Available for Secondment

Yes

Closing Date

30-Oct-2025

About us

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UCL is a world-leading teaching and research university, often ranked in the top ten in the world with an annual turnover of well over 1 billion. Part of UCL's vision is to take on the hardest global challenges.



The Information Services Division (ISD) is the primary provider of IT services to UCL. We support and enhance learning, teaching, research and administrative processes by providing information- and technology-related services to over 50,000 staff and students of UCL and associated institutions.



Our ambition is to be the leading IT services group in the HE sector and we are growing our team's capability in experience/UX, agile development, security, cloud, service management and partnering.



We are modernising our technology foundations, digitising the processes of the university to transform experience for students and staff, and partnering across the university to drive differentiation in UCL education and research.



Within ISD, this role is part of the Portfolio and Product Delivery department. Our purpose is to manage the delivery of technology led change, partnering with colleagues across UCL. We collaborate as cross functional agile teams and have core capabilities in experience, development & test, analysis and agile delivery management.

About the role and you

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UCL are looking for a interim

Senior Test/Tech Lead

for a fixed term 6 month contract for maternity coverage in Dev and Test, starting in early December 2025.



They must be highly motivated, passionate about technology and product development and committed to high levels of quality across all parts of the product development lifecycle, with particular experience in delivering quality products developed and supplied by 3rd parties.



Exceptional team and departmental leadership skills, with a track record in supporting, growing and nurturing a nascent QA automation capability and TDD culture.


Ability to directly and indirectly line manage a team of 10-15 people Willing to attend UCL on campus for at least one day a week and also willing to attend workshops with 3rd party vendors on site. Familiarity with Agile, Kanban and Lean development methodologies. Strong understanding and experience of the software development lifecycle with particular emphasis on: + Source control management (such as Git/GitHub)
+ One or more programming languages such as Python or JavaScript (Typescript) and a good understanding of unit testing and dependency management for said programming language
+ Good understanding of continuous integration (build, test, publish), CI pipelines and automated deployment
+ Strong understanding of static analysis and SAST
Strong understanding and experience of post build testing specifically around; functional and system testing (using either Playwright, Selenium or other browser driven automation); and non-functional testing such as accessibility, combability, performance and security testing (DAST). Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills and a strong understanding of product development with particular emphasis on requirements gathering, refinement and acceptance criteria. Strong experience of testing fundamentals and user acceptance testing, along with the ability to coordinate and organise large business and acceptance testing activities using X-Ray or similar tracking systems. Strong understanding of configuration management, with particular emphasis on the configuration, implementation and acceptance of 3rd party / external products, both SaaS and on-premise. Any experience with consumer driven testing and contract testing, both API contracts and data contracts, are a bonus. Any experience with data quality testing and data quality testing frameworks such as Great Expectations, Soda or Monte Carlo. Any experience of Microsoft PowerPlatform, SITS, or OutSystems is useful, but not essential.

What we offer

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As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer some great benefits some of which are below:


41 Days holiday (27 days annual leave 8 bank holiday and 6 closure days) Additional 5 days' annual leave purchase scheme This post is eligible for USS Pension Scheme
+ staff contribute 6.1% and UCL will contribute 14.6%
+ Life insurance is included (3x salary)
Cycle to work scheme and season ticket loan Immigration loan Relocation scheme for certain posts On-Site nursery On-site gym Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay Employee assistance programme: Staff Support Service Discounted medical insurance

Visit https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/rewards-and-benefits to find out more.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

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As London's Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world's talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong.



We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL's workforce.



These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.