Principal Test Manager

Job summary

Principal Test Manager
£95000 per annum
Bedford
Permanent
Hybrid Working

Join us at the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) as a Principal Test Manager. The Principal Test Manager provides strategic leadership for Quality Engineering across the organisation. This role is accountable for defining, implementing, and continuously improving testing and quality practices, frameworks, and standards that ensure high-quality software delivery across all portfolios and programmes.

They embed a culture of excellence, collaboration, and engineering discipline throughout. The Principal Test Manager ensures that all testing activity, whether functional, non-functional, automated, or exploratory, is aligned to business outcomes and delivery models.

You’ll be part of a dynamic team dedicated to helping people across the UK improve their financial wellbeing.

Job description

In this role you will be responsible for the following;

Strategic Leadership

• Maintain and mature quality standards and frameworks to drive consistency, reuse, and innovation across delivery portfolios.
• Own the Quality Engineering roadmap, covering test automation, tooling, environments, data, performance testing, accessibility, and observability.
• Produce quality KPIs and metrics that demonstrate value and enable data-driven decision making (e.g. defect leakage, automation coverage, cycle time).
• Drive adoption of shift-left and shift-right testing, embedding testing early in CI/CD pipelines and using production insights to improve quality feedback loops.

Governance & Assurance

• Provide independent test assurance for high-risk / regulated programmes.
• Chair or contribute to Quality Gates and release readiness reviews.
• Establish and manage vendor QA governance, ensuring external partners meet agreed SLAs, KPIs, and quality standards.
  
  

People & Organisation

• Own and run the Quality Engineering Community of Practice encompassing 3rd party and in—house colleagues
• Build and lead a multi-skilled test community
• Mentor QAs, QA Leads, Programme Test Leads, ensuring they operate to consistent standards and behaviours.
• Promote a culture of continuous learning, experimentation, and collaboration between QA, Software Engineering, and Operational teams.
  
  

Innovation & Tooling

• Own and evolve the test tooling landscape
• Evaluate and adopt emerging tools and practices (AI-assisted testing, contract testing, etc.).
• Collaborate with engineering/DevOps to ensure environments, data, and test automation pipelines are reliable, scalable, and cost-efficient.

Person specification

Essential:

You will need to demonstrate the following skills and experience;

• 4 years+ experience leading Quality Assurance or Quality Engineering teams
• People leadership and line management experience..
• Able to manage a diverse group of internal and external stakeholders.
• Stay current with industry trends, landscape changes and new technologies to identify new opportunities.
• Strong team leadership and experience with working cross functional teams, including collaborating with peers and other community of practice leads to plan and manage delivery.

Benefits

About Us

The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) is based in Bedford, in a recently renovated modern office. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to become an integral part of a dynamic organisation, working to help people across the UK.

At the heart of the Money and Pensions Service are our values – caring, connecting, and transforming, which are the foundation of our success. They permeate every area of our work and define all our business relationships and the way we work with each other. We’re not only looking for the best people to come and work for us, but we need people who align themselves with our values:

• Caring
  We care about our colleagues and the people whose lives we are here to transform.
• Connecting
  We will transform lives through our ability to make positive connections.
• Transforming
  We are committed to transforming lives and making a positive societal impact.

Our Inclusive Working Environment
By fostering our values, we are immensely proud of the inclusive working environment that we have created. The diversity of our people is a strength that we embrace and wish to build upon, so we are committed to attracting people of all backgrounds. We work hard to ensure that we have a progressive approach to inclusion, equity, and belonging. We really do want our colleagues to “bring their whole selves to work.”

Our colleague and ally networks encompass LGBTQ+, neurodiversity, women’s health, men’s health, ethnicity, and diversity.

What We Offer

• Generous Annual Leave – 30 days plus Bank Holidays
• Pension scheme – contributions matched 2 to 1 (up to 10% of your salary)
• Interest-free loan for season tickets for buses and trains
• Cycle to work Scheme
• Subsidised eye tests & flu jabs
• Life assurance scheme
• Give as you earn scheme
• Employee assistance programme (EAP)
• PAM Assist and PAM Life scheme (Wellbeing)
• Enhanced family and sick pay
• Paid volunteering (2 days a year)
• Recognition Scheme
• Discounts portal to numerous retailers

Flexible Working
At MaPS, we take pride in our flexible approach to work. As standard, we work on a hybrid basis with a minimum of 2 days in the office per month. Hybrid working is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and our headquarters in Bedford will be your contractual place of work. The number of days that anyone will be able to work at home will be determined primarily by business needs, but personal and other relevant circumstances will also be considered. If you are successful, any opportunities for hybrid working, including whether a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for you, will be discussed with you prior to you taking up your post.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

Recruitment Process:

1. Initial Review: Our recruiter will review your CV. If it looks like a good fit, they'll reach out to arrange a call.
2. Hiring Manager Review: If the recruiter thinks you're suitable, your CV will be passed to the hiring manager, who will decide whether to invite you for an interview.
3. Interview: If selected, you'll participate in a virtual interview. This single-stage process allows you to demonstrate your skills and experience through competency-based questions. This will also require you to deliver a short presentation.

Career Development
In MaPS, we take career development seriously. We actively encourage and support applications from our existing MaPS colleagues. However, we do follow the Civil Service Commissioner recruitment principles, which means that you will be required to participate in a full, open, and fair process.

Reserve List
If you are successful at interview, we operate a reserve list where your details will be held for up to 6 months. Should a vacancy come available in that time with the same essential criteria, reserve list candidates will be offered that position with no further assessment required.

Application Process
The law requires that selection for appointment to the Civil Service is on merit on the basis of fair and open competition as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact the Money and Pensions Service via email: recruitment@maps.org.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission: Visit the Civil Service Commission website.

Job Reference: MaPS01128
Close Date: 2nd June 2026

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

Please note this Post is NOT regulated by the Civil Service Commission.The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Marty Sikora
• Email : marty.sikora@reed.com

Recruitment team

• Email : moneyand.pensions@reed.com