Testing and Training Lead

Length of Employment / Contract End Date 18 months

Working Hours Full Time

Grade I

36

Salary Range £46,968 - £52,194

Salary Basis Per annum

Leave Entitlement 30 days

Application Deadline 04/09/2026, 23:55

Anticipated Interview Date(s) TBC

About the Borough

Found in zone 6 with good transport links in and out of London, Kingston is a vibrant and diverse university town which creates the rich sense of community shared across the borough and its Residents. Kingston boasts an idyllic riverside location, good shopping and great restaurants, as well as a mix of modern and historic town centre. Kingston has lots of open parklands and cycle routes that help connect the district town centres into an enjoyable place to live and work.

We are passionate about working closely with our residents and vulnerable groups to help them maintain their independence and create a balance between support and independent living.

About the Role and our Ideal Candidate

Lead the testing and training strategy for the new NEC Housing Management System to ensure system robustness and staff readiness.

• Develop and own the comprehensive Training and Testing strategies aligned with council governance and audit standards.
• Conduct needs analysis, design role-based training programs, and oversee the creation of accessible materials for diverse user groups.
• Lead all testing phases (SIT, UAT, Regression) and manage the defect triage process in collaboration with NEC partners and internal teams.
• Work closely with Housing, IT, and Finance teams to ensure system readiness and provide assurance to the Programme Board.

About you

Are you a detail-oriented professional with a passion for delivering high-quality systems? We are looking for a Training & Testing Lead to spearhead the implementation of our new NEC Housing Management System (HMS). You will play a pivotal role in ensuring the system is robust, compliant, and that our staff are fully equipped to embrace new, agile ways of working. This is a unique opportunity to drive continuous improvement and deliver meaningful outcomes for our communities.

Essential: We're looking for someone with a strong understanding of social housing processes and housing management services and systems, ideally with experience using NEC HMS or similar platforms. You should have a proven track record of coordinating User Acceptance Testing alongside operational teams, alongside excellent documentation, reporting, and stakeholder engagement skills. Crucially, you should be able to break down complex system and process changes, ensuring they are clear and easy to understand for everyone, regardless of their technical background.

Desirable: It would be a great bonus if you have hands-on experience with NEC Housing Management System implementations and have worked within housing services. We also value a strong understanding of public sector standards, particularly those relating to accessibility, equality, and data protection, as this helps us ensure our services are inclusive for all.

About Us

The Housing Service is undertaking a large-scale digital housing project to implement the NEC Housing Management System. The post holder will work closely with housing services, IT, finance, customer services, and the NEC delivery team to support a compliant, low-risk, and user-focused system implementation.

Our Offer To You

As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we're committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We're constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across however big or small; will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.

Employees have access to a wide range of benefits to enable staff to achieve a work life balance, some of which include:

• A generous annual leave entitlement of 25-32 days, plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply) depending on service and grade.
• Enhanced Maternity, Paternity, shared parental, adoption and dependents leave
• Three volunteering days per year in Kingston
• Hybrid working (dependent on the role)
• Flexible and agile working arrangements using Google Chromebooks
• Learning and development portal offering a range of courses
• Discounts on a range of local shops, restaurants, gyms and leisure centres
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Local Government Pension Scheme
• Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
• Electric vehicle leasing scheme
• Confidential health & wellbeing and counselling support

Additional Information

We are proud to be a diverse and welcoming Borough and we strive to create a workforce which reflects the community we serve, and instil a sense of belonging in our staff. We celebrate and respect differences and appreciate the value of having a diverse workforce, therefore we welcome applications from under represented groups.

To support our workers and their families we offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums and inclusive staff networks who help drive our diversity agenda.

We are also proud to be a disability confident employer and guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum essential criteria for a role. As an accredited London Living Wage Employer all our employees are guaranteed the London Living Wage regardless of their length or type of contract.

The UK has a points-based immigration system affecting EU and Non-EU workers and sponsorship requirements. We advise checking the GOV.UK website for right to work guidance. Sponsorship availability varies and is subject to eligibility requirements and budget limitations. As a result, we cannot guarantee sponsorship for all roles and will evaluate sponsorship requests on a case-by-case basis.