Senior Programme Quality Engineer

McLaren Automotive Limited; Woking; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days’ holiday

Enhanced pension

Private medical insurance

Life assurance

Sabbatical after tenure

Job summary

McLaren Automotive Limited seeks a Senior Programme Quality Engineer to champion the voice of quality in vehicle programmes and influence early design decisions. You will lead KPI delivery, drive QCA activities, and ensure robust quality controls across programmes from concept to handover.

The role requires strong collaboration, problem solving, and communication skills to coordinate across design, engineering, and manufacturing teams in a fast-paced, high-value environment.

Qualifications

• 8D or PPS problem solving approach is essential.
• Methodical work style with strong analytical capabilities.
• Experience setting quality targets and measuring KPIs.
• Excellent problem solving and structured thinking throughout programmes.
• Strong written and verbal communications across levels.

Responsibilities

• Lead the delivery of programme quality KPI reporting and governance.
• Develop and maintain the project quality control plan with cost awareness.
• Ensure QCA activities prevent recurring quality issues across programmes.
• Support design and manufacturing reviews to embedDesigned for Quality.
• Coordinate quality reporting and risk assessment for handover to series.

Skills

8D / PPS

Analytical skills

Quality targets

Problem solving

Communication skills

Job description

Senior Programme Quality EngineerRef #59587Date postedTuesday, October 6, 2026CountryUnited KingdomLocationWokingBusiness areaQualityDepartmentTechnical QualityPosition level5 - Supervisory / Professional - (L-16)Working timeFull TimeContract typePermanentWorking pattern9am - 6pm Monday to FridayWhat to ExpectReporting to the ‘Programme Quality Manager’, the role of ‘Senior Programme Quality Engineer’ is to represent the “voice of quality” within vehicle programmes and to support delivery of Quality owned activities. The ‘Senior Programme Quality Engineer’ engages at the very front end of the conceptual design process and plays an integral role within the vehicle programme team to influence the overall styling, technical, and manufacturing activities until the handover to series is complete.**The core functions of the role are:*** Alongside the Programme Quality Manager and Faults Management Engineer, the ‘Senior Programme Quality Engineer’ is responsible for managing all programme quality activities across the respective vehicle programmes.* Leading the delivery of all internal customer quality KPI’s (concern reporting, customer product audit, BIW measurement, etc.)* Must be able to work pragmatically in a team to find ways forward, while maintaining a clear focus on quality.* Continuous improvement of known quality issues through the new model development process.This is a challenging area of the business that operates at all levels of management from shop floor to executive director, across multiple projects at any given time and works cross functionally to resolve issues from concept through to launch. This role requires someone with a high level of interpersonal and communication skills that can persuade, guide and lead with assertion, while building important relationships at all levels both internally and externally across the business.What You'll Do**Programme Quality Management*** Lead the delivery of all relevant McLaren Development Process quality gateway deliverables in relation to the allocated programme.* Lead the governance of all quality control aspects, including the development of the project quality control plan.* Responsible to ensure that all ‘quality’ related costs are provisioned with a Value To Complete (VTC) budget line for each related item.* Lead the Quality Concern Avoidance (QCA) activity to ensure robust prevention of repeat critical quality issues.* Support the prioritisation of issues to ensure the business can make informed decisions when launching vehicle programmes.* Responsible for ensuring that all quality targets are defined in accordance with customer product audit and Fault Per Vehicle (FPV).* Support design and styling meetings, to ensure direction set is Designed for Quality (DFQ).* Support gap & flush and dimensional variation analysis reviews to ensure built in, achievable quality.* Create, issue, and track all programme quality reporting against McLaren Development Process deliverables.* Responsible to lead the quality risk assessment against the programme.**Fault Management*** Support all technical problem allocations and steering, supported by the ‘Programme Quality Manager’ and ‘Fault Management Engineer’ to ensure prioritisation of all issues and risk filters are applied correctly.* Support the problem-solving process.* Steering & escalation of priority programme concerns as highlighted via the faults management process.What You'll Bring**Business Knowledge*** Experience of low volume, high value automotive products.* An understanding/appreciation of customer quality expectations.* Experience of low volume launch activities, reviews and readiness preparation.* Engineering design reviews.* Manufacturing process reviews.* Faults management control and KPi delivery.* Budget planning and review meetings.* Experience of business and process audits.* An understanding of new product release and change management process.**Essential Functional / Technical Skills*** 8D or Practical Problem Solving (PPS).* Methodical approach to work with strong analytical skills.* Good problem-solving ability.* Quality target setting experience.* Basic understanding of SPC, statistics and process capabilities.**Personal Attributes / Competencies*** Strong collaboration and teamwork skills.* Ability to pioneer for progress.* Work with ambition and persistence.* Excellent verbal and written communication skills.* Unquestionable personal and professional integrity.* Methodical approach to work with strong analytical skills.* Enthusiastic, driven, and positive.* Quality focused - ideally with demonstrated experience of automotive new model development.* Driven by accuracy with high attention to detail.* Ability to manage, prioritise tasks efficiently.* Excellent organisational skills.* Able to build good relationships at all levels, internally and externally.* Resilient; able to work under pressure, and to tight deadlines.* Ambitious, self-reliant and intrinsically self-motivated.* Take ownership of the solutions and champion the change until implementation and full adoption.* Able to work with and influence employees at all levels.* Gains the respect of colleagues and is a team player who is more interested in results than personal preferences.What We'll Do for You**We offer a wide – ranging benefits package, which includes:*** Structured career development framework* 25 days’ holiday, plus bank holiday. Annual buy & sell up to five days* Enhanced company pension scheme* Discretionary annual bonus award* Private medical insurance and health cash plan* Life assurance benefit* Ability to apply for a sabbatical of up to one year after only two years’ service* Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping* Generous parental leave policies* A range of wellbeing initiatives, such as employee assistance programme and free financial & mortgage advice