Welcome to VCA
Opportunities to make a real difference don't come along every day but a career with VCA offers the potential to do just that.
VCA is an Agency of the UK Department for Transport and has two key strands of work:
- The testing and certification of new vehicles to given environmental and safety standards.
- The provision of management systems certification to the automotive and related industries.
Unlike the majority of government bodies VCA is required to cover the cost of operation through fee earning activities, which is achieved in direct competition with European counterparts. This provides staff with a great combination of public and commercial sector experience.
Our HQ is in Bristol, with an office and test facilities on the MIRA site at Nuneaton and an office at the Millbrook Proving Ground near Milton Keynes. A strategy of overseas expansion is ongoing to ensure that VCA is at elbow with an increasingly global automotive industry. As a result of this, VCA has offices in the US, Japan, Malaysia, China, India, Italy and Australia. The global nature of our work means that there are opportunities for staff to travel abroad as well as potential for secondments.
VCA has a reputation for providing services of the highest quality and our certification is accepted elsewhere without question. Our staff are clearly central to this and we pride ourselves that following the appropriate training, they are considered to be specialists in the field.
If making a significant contribution to the overall objectives of the Department for Transport by reducing deaths, injuries and the damaging environmental effects arising from transport sounds interesting, please read on...
A career with Us
We employ over 120 staff in a variety of administrative, engineering, auditing and specialist roles throughout our offices.
We offer excellent pay and non-pay benefits, which we continually seek to improve. We currently offer:
Salary
Starting salaries will vary depending on the role applied for and full details are provided with the job description. Our pay structure consists of a number of progression points, based on years in post. Overtime / TOIL (time of in Lieu) is available for staff working over their conditioned hours.
Bonus
Our bonus arrangements provide staff with recognition and reward for delivery of outstanding contribution.
There are two types of award:
- In-Year Bonuses up to the value of £500 – paid to individuals or teams in recognition of one-off achievements during the year;
- Annual Bonuses up to the value of £1000 – which are paid to staff for the delivery of an outstanding outcome or contribution sustained throughout the whole year.
Hours of Work
Full-time employees will normally work a 5-day week of 36 hours excluding lunch breaks. Flexitime arrangements apply to most roles in VCA's Headquarters in Bristol. Applications from people wishing to work part-time or job share are welcome.
Annual Leave
Employees are entitled to 30 days' paid leave per year and receive 10.5 days' public and privilege holidays per year. This allowance is calculated on a pro-rata basis for part time staff.
Pensions
Employees are able to choose between 2 pension arrangements:
- Membership of the premium, a final salary occupational pension scheme with a 3.5% contribution rate; or
- A partnership pension account, a stakeholder pension with an employer contribution based on your age. You do not have to contribute, but if you do we will also match your contributions up to 3% of pensionable pay.
Learning and Development
We are committed to ensuring that our staff have the knowledge and skills to carry out their work and to providing learning and development opportunities to all of our staff.
Childcare Voucher Scheme
We operate a “salary sacrifice” scheme for childcare vouchers. This allows employees to exchange part of their salary per month for childcare vouchers, which are exempt from income tax and national insurance contributions.
Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)
We offer staff an employee assistance programme. This service provides you, your family and those close to you, direct access to a team of specialists and counsellors, geared up to help tackle a whole range of practical and emotional issues. The EAP free phone number operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Oversea's travel and secondments
Our Auditors and Engineers regularly work overseas visiting our clients premises around the world. VCA's type approval engineers in the UK are provided with regular opportunities to work either short term or long-term secondments overseas.
Equal Opportunities
We are an Equal Opportunities Employer. Our staff are entitled to receive fair and equal treatment in all areas of their working life, irrespective of your race, ethnic or national origin, age, religion or belief, sex, gender identity, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, working pattern, employment status, caring responsibility or trade union membership.
Your application
Thank you for the interest you have shown in the VCA. When you apply for one of our vacancies you will receive an application form, diversity monitoring form and a full job description. By completing and returning your diversity form you will help us to monitor the diversity profile of the candidates. This form is removed from your returned application and is not used as part of the selection process.
We use the information you supply in the application form to help us draw up a shortlist of candidates for interview. The information that you provide us is vital for this part of the process. Only candidates who have meet the essential criteria will be short-listed. With this in mind it is important that you give specific examples under each of the essential and desirable headings demonstrating how you meet this criteria. Your responses need to provide evidence to demonstrate that you possess these requirements for the role.
Please feel free to contact us if you require any further information on our recruitment process or about any of our vacancies, we'd be happy to hear from you.
We look forward to receiving your completed application.
Click here to view our current opportunities
