Senior Test Engineer

UKRI; West of England; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 54,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Defined benefit pension

30 days annual leave + 10.5 holidays

Employee discounts & assistance

Flexible working options

Job summary

UKRI in Bristol is seeking a Senior Test Engineer to design, implement and maintain automated test solutions across multiple products and services. You will develop reusable test frameworks, tooling and assets to support efficient testing practices.

The role requires integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines, applying risk‑based testing, and coaching colleagues to raise quality across Agile teams while working in a hybrid model (minimum 2 days in the office).

Qualifications

• Proven experience in software testing and quality engineering within Agile delivery environments.
• Experience designing, implementing, and maintaining automated test frameworks using modern tools (Robot Framework, Selenium, Playwright, Cypress).
• Experience integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience applying risk-based testing methodologies and test strategies.
• Experience coaching and mentoring testers and contributing to testing communities of practice.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, maintain, and implement automated test solutions across multiple products and services.
• Develop and maintain reusable test frameworks, tooling, and test assets to support efficient testing practices.
• Ensure automated tests are integrated into CI/CD pipelines and support continuous quality assurance activities.
• Apply a risk-based approach to testing and proactively identify, assess, communicate, and manage quality risks.
• Analyse requirements, user stories, designs, technical specifications, and business processes to define effective test approaches and coverage.
• Collaborate with developers, business analysts, product managers, and partners to embed quality from the outset.

Skills

Software testing

Automated test frameworks

CI/CD integration

Risk-based testing

Mentoring testers

Tools

Robot Framework

Selenium

Playwright

Cypress

Job description

UKRI
Salary: £46,743 per annum.
Band: UKRI Band E.
Contract Type: Fixed Term (23 months).
Hours: Full-time (flexible working available).
Location: Bristol - Hybrid working available (Minimum 2 days per week in office).

Closing Date: Thursday 1st October 2026.

About the role

As a Senior Test Engineer, you will:

• Design, develop, maintain, and implement automated test solutions across multiple products and services.
• Develop and maintain reusable test frameworks, tooling, and test assets that support efficient and consistent testing practices.
• Ensure automated tests are integrated into CI/CD pipelines and support continuous quality assurance activities.
• Apply a risk-based approach to testing and proactively identify, assess, communicate, and manage quality risks.
• Analyse requirements, user stories, designs, technical specifications, and business processes to define effective test approaches and coverage.
• Design and implement functional, integration, system, exploratory, regression, performance, and non-functional testing activities.
• Collaborate closely with developers, business analysts, product managers, and partners to ensure quality is embedded from the outset.
• Investigate defects and quality issues, ensuring that findings are clearly communicated and understood by both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Promote modern engineering and testing practices across teams and projects.
• Contribute to the development of testing standards, strategies, frameworks, and quality metrics.
• Support the evaluation and adoption of new testing tools, technologies, and approaches.
• Coach, mentor, and support other testers and team members to improve testing capability and quality outcomes.

Personal Specification

The below criteria will be scored during Shortlisting (S), Interview (I) or both (S&I).

Essential

• Proven experience in software testing and quality engineering within Agile delivery environments and working with multidisciplinary teams (S).
• Experience designing, implementing, and maintaining automated test frameworks using modern automation tools such as Robot Framework, Selenium, Playwright or Cypress (S&I).
• Experience integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines (S&I).
• Experience applying risk-based testing methodologies and test strategies (I).
• Experience coaching and mentoring testers and quality engineering professionals as well as contributing to testing communities of practice and continuous improvement initiatives (S&I).

Benefits

We recognise and value our employees as individuals and aim to provide a favourable pay and rewards package. UKRI are committed to supporting employees' development and promote a culture of continuous learning!

A list of benefits below:

• An outstanding defined benefit pension scheme
• 30 days' annual leave in addition to 10.5 public and privilege days (full time equivalent)
• Employee discounts and offers on retail and leisure activities
• Employee assistance programme, providing confidential help and advice
• Flexible working options

Plus many more benefits and wellbeing initiatives that enable our employees to have a great work life balance!

For further information on our benefits please see: Benefits of working at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

Please note, if you will require sponsorship to work in the UK, as part of your sponsorship application, you and any dependants travelling with you, will be required to pay costs directly to The Home Office for the application before you start your role with us. UKRI is normally able to reimburse some, or all of these fees after you have become an employee and this can be discussed with the Hiring Manager. For more information, please visit https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/how-much-it-costs or contact [e-mail].