Job summary
- Main area
- IT
- Grade
- Band 8a
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time
- Flexible working
- Job ref
- 025-AC182-0825
- Employer
- Digital Health and Care Wales
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Hybrid working
- Town
- Cardiff
- Salary
- £56,514 - £63,623 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 01/09/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Test Manager
Band 8a
Digital Health and Care Wales is an ambitious organisation created by Welsh Government to lead on the digital transformation of health and care. It builds on the digital architecture and national services put in place by the NHS Wales Informatics Service over the past decade.
The organisation will lead on large-scale developments that make a significant difference to the people of Wales as well as to health and care professionals, such as expansion of the digital patient record and the creation of a National Data Resource. It will improve the way data is collected, shared and used. Please check your email account regularly. Successful applicants will receive all recruitment related correspondence via the email account registered on the application form.
All applicants are invited to apply in Welsh, any application submitted in Welsh will not be treated less favourably than an application made in English.
The salary scale above has been agreed as part of the NHS Agenda for Change pay award for 2025/2026 and will be implemented in August 2025 with arrears backdated to 1st April 2025 where applicable.
Job overview
Are you passionate about test automation, digital transformation, and developing others? Do you want to play a key role in ensuring health services continue to evolve? If so, we want you to join our team!
Why This Role Matters
Our organization creates digital health and care solutions for the population of Wales. This role leads our operations testing team of approximately 30 people. The role is responsible for teaching the team about test automation, test telemetry, test containers, test pipelines, and the like.
We are now transforming our operations into a product-led organization, expanding its capabilities to support future public health challenges but to share our learning with other teams as we create a unified automation first test strategy. To do this, we need a Test Manager who can drive continuous improvement, automation, and innovation, ensuring the system is robust, scalable, and future-proof. You'll lead the charge in test strategy, optimisation, and innovation, working alongside multidisciplinary teams to deliver high-profile digital solutions that support NHS Wales and lead a key pillar of our technical strategy.
Main duties of the job
What You'll Be Doing
- Leading test strategy and automation, ensuring our digital services meet the highest standards.
- Driving continuous testing with CI/CD pipelines, enabling faster and more reliable releases.
- Helping evolve our microservices-based architecture and embedding best practices in test automation.
- Managing stakeholders, suppliers, and teams to maintain seamless quality assurance.
- Supporting professional development by mentoring and coaching others in automation and testing methodologies.
- Playing a crucial role in ensuring operations services are efficient, scalable, and accessible across Wales.
Our Testing & Automation Vision
- Over 80% test automation coverage - enabling 611 functional tests in 3 hours instead of 6 weeks manually.
- Integrated CI/CD pipelines so every code change is tested instantly, reducing risk and improving efficiency.
- A shift to microservices and API-first design, ensuring a modern, scalable system that integrates with national health platforms.
- Developing a user-centred design approach, making our systems intuitive, efficient, and accessible.
The ability to speak Welsh is desirable for this post; Welsh and/or English speakers are equally welcome to apply.
Working for our organisation
Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) is an expert national body and part of NHS Wales. We work in partnership with NHS Wales colleagues and other key stakeholders to provide national digital and data services which support the delivery of health and social care in Wales. Modern health and care services depend on good digital tools, data and information. DHCW runs or works with more than 100 services and delivers major national digital transformation programmes to support this. In addition, DHCW provides expert advice in relation to cyber security and information governance. We give frontline staff the digital tools which help them provide safer and more efficient care. We are also giving patients and the public digital tools to better manage their own health and wellbeing, empowering people to live healthier lives. We put people at the heart of what we do, working to the highest standards to deliver quality and make digital a force for good in health and care.
Working for DHCW offers lots of employee benefits, including flexible working, a competitive salary, 28 days of annual leave plus Bank Holidays and opportunities for career development. We are committed to recognising and celebrating our staff as the most valuable part of our organisation.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
You will be able to find a full Job description and Person Specification attached within the supporting documents or please click “Apply now” to view in Trac
Person specification
Qualifications and Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Educated to Master’s level or equivalent qualification / experience
- Evidence of continuous professional development
- Practitioner of Agile working with multi-disciplinary teams
- A relevant testing certification or relevant functional and non-functional technical testing experience.
- Proficient in Automation Testing and test analysis using technologies
Desirable criteria
- Working knowledge of the NHS or the Health sector
- Understanding and knowledge of health service terminology and information requirements
- Knowledge of DHCW and how it supports the NHS.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Significant experience of working in a testing role with use of testing tools
- Experience applying highly developed specialised knowledge, supported by pertinent theoretical knowledge and applicable practical experience, across a range of work methods and practices
- Proven experience in the analysis, testing and product management of digital systems.
- Proven record in the delivery and support of major digital products and services
- Experience in coaching and mentoring staff; specifically agile and multi-disciplinary teams
- Excellent understanding of translating business/functional requirements into specialist technical specifications and complex operational digital products and services
- Can demonstrate a track record of testing.
- Experience of working in an Agile environment.
Skills and Attributes
Essential criteria
- Ability to manage and motivate staff by contributing to and identifying training needs
- Ability to manage and motivate staff by contributing to and identifying training needs
- Ability to organise own work and manage a team effectively.
- Implement Change Management methodology within team environment.
- Ability to analyse and resolve complex issues using expert judgement skills to prioritise and compare options
- Ability to provide or receive highly contentious information, and use persuasive, negotiating, and re-assurance skills to understand and mitigate barriers and blockers
- High quality written and verbal communication skills with excellent presentation skills.
- In depth understanding of the information and service delivery needs of NHS Wales
- Proven experience of working in testing
- Ability to manage under pressure with excellent planning and organisational skills
- Professional, and positive approach to work
- Ability to establish good working relationships.
Desirable criteria
- Welsh Language Skills are desirable levels 1 to 5 in understanding, speaking, reading, and writing in Welsh
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
Welsh language skills are desirable
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Joel Henderson
- Job title
- Head of Software Engineering
- Email address
- [email protected]
List jobs with Digital Health and Care Wales in Administrative Services or all sectors