After Tony Parks left Norwich to become Aston Villa's goalkeeping coach in February 2015, former Charlton stopper Dean Kiely replaced him at Carrow Road

Kiely was a youth team player at West Bromwich Albion before being accepted into the FA School of Excellence at Lilleshall. He then joined Coventry's youth system signing a professional contract on 30th October 1987. He joined Ipswich on loan in November 1989 but didn't play any games. He went to York on loan in March 1990 before joining permanently the following May. He made 210 league appearances for the Minster Men.

Following a trail with Plymouth, he signed for Bury on 15th August 1996 for a tribunal set fee of £125,000. He spent three seasons at Gigg Lane making 137 league appearances and helping them win the Second Division title.

He moved to Charlton for a fee of £1million on 26th May 1999 and was their regular keeper until 2005. he made 248 appearances for Charlton.

He moved to Portsmouth in January 2006 helping them escape from relegation. Faced with competition from David James and Jamie Ashdown, he moved to Luton on loan on 23rd November 2006 before signing for West Bom on 30th January 2007.

He made his 700th appearance on 1st September 2007 as Albion beat Barnsley 2-0. He was later second fiddle to Scott Carson although he did get to play in the Premier League. He took over the goalkeeping coaching responsibilities at the Hawthorns from Joe Corrigan and was officially named as goalkeeping coach in April 2010.

He retired as a player at the end of the 2010/11 season remaining as coach umtil he was released by new manager Tony Pulis in January 2015.

On 13th July 2017, Norwich confirmed that Kiely had left the club with Daniel Farke expecting to bring in a replacement.

On 16th September 2017, Kiely re-united with Alex Neil and became first team goalkeeping coach at Preston. Neil said: "We are delighted that Dean has agreed to join us. We went through a thorough recruitment process with a number of excellent applicants, but after the interviews Dean stood as the outstanding candidate.

On 8th January 2018 Kiely returned to South London to work again with Roy Hodgson (whom he worked with at West Brom) by becoming Crystal Palace's new goalkeeping coach.

He played for England at Under-15, Under-16 and Under-17 level, winning 13 caps, 13 caps and 4 caps respectively. Changing allegience to Ireland, he earned his first cap in November 1999 against Turkey. he won 11 caps for Irelland.