Quality Practitioner Higher Apprenticeship 2026

Quality Practitioner Higher Apprenticeship 2026

We're looking for bright and committed apprentices who will bring energy, new ideas and a fresh perspective to help us become the recognised leader and transform the construction and engineering industry.

Role Overview

The broad purpose of the Quality Practitioner role is to deploy effective Quality Practices to ensure we fulfil the contractual and regulatory requirements of our customers and other stakeholders alongside our own business requirements. This includes four main elements: 1. Quality Planning (planning a delivery system for consistent outputs, such as implementing Quality Management Plans), 2. Quality Assurance (providing confidence to stakeholders that Quality standards are maintained, such as conducting audits), 3. Quality Control (verifying a product or service is meeting agreed specifications, such as carrying out inspections) and 4. Continuous Improvement (preventing recurrence of poor quality through analysis and addressing the root cause of poor quality, such as conducting investigations).

In your daily work, you will interact with a variety of teams within the organisation (e.g. technical, procurement, manufacturing, and operational) and external organisations, such as customers, suppliers and certification bodies when required. The individual will be expected to be an advocate for implementing Quality Practice and Governance. A typical day will include internal meetings to review quality performance, such as gathering and analysing quality performance data, inspection or audit findings, carrying out audits or inspections, stakeholder visits, interacting with people from other functions to plan the quality delivery system for their area of responsibility. Individuals will also support and develop people within and outside the Quality Function.

They work within the Quality function in Dartford under the guidance of the central Quality team.

Quality Practitioners are part of the QA/QC Job Family and the parent Technical Function, which ensures technical excellence, assurance and performance across all projects and opportunities from pre-project, early engagement and work winning through to detailed delivery. The Technical function is part of our Engineering Enterprise and is aligned with our overall strategy to maximise DFMA, Digital Engineering, and Early Engagement.

Quality Practitioners will receive the appropriate on and off the job training to allow you to become an experienced Laing O'Rourke Quality Practitioner.

Key Deliverables and Accountabilities of a Quality Practitioner Apprentice

• Support Quality Leaders to formulate Quality Strategy
• Contribute to the management of customer satisfaction and supplier performance.
• Deploy Quality Policies and Governance
• Guide and support others to improve quality competency and performance.
• Plan and Conduct Audits and other assurance activities.
• Develop Quality Control Plans for products/services.
• Provide guidance on use of methods/tools to improve quality performance.
• Solving Quality problems, such as non-conformances, and overcoming challenges to the implementation of solutions
• Effective application of quality risk management and mitigation to drive new products/services development
• Highly computer literate (MS Office including MS Word, Excel, Outlook & PowerPoint, PDF Editors).

Location

Dartford, Oxford, Worksop, London

Apprenticeship level and standard

Level 4, 14 months, Quality practitioner / Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education

Entry Requirements

We are looking for graduates who meet the following criteria:

• 4 GCSEs at C/4+
• Minimum of 96 UCAS points, 3 A-levels at C grade or equivalent
• Have strong numeracy and literacy skills
• Be flexible as you may be required to work away
• Be eligible to work in the UK. We cannot offer visa sponsorship

Entry requirements

• You must be eligible to work in the UK with a valid work permit
• Entry grades will be listed within each job description and they will differ from role to role
• To qualify for this programme, you will need to have a minimum of three A-Levels/or equivalent

Accessibility and Support

We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to all candidates. If you require any adjustments or support with your application, or at any stage of the process, please do not hesitate to contact [email protected]

The Professional Apprenticeship Programme will commence in September 2025

How to apply

To apply for this role and to find out more, please click on the apply button. Please note that applications may close before the application deadline, so apply early to avoid disappointment.