Lead Quality Assurance Test Engineer

Lead QA Test Engineer | JavaScript, Node.js, Test Automation, CI/CD | ****Active SC required****

• Salary: £60,000
• Location: hybrid, 3 days a week on site in Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle or Blackpool
• ****Active SC required****

Our client is a digital consultancy that builds and runs services for one of the UK's largest government departments, and they need a Lead QA Test Engineer to set the quality bar across several delivery teams. The services you'll assure are used by millions of people, so accessibility, security and stability sit at the centre of the work.
You'll champion quality assurance and testing (QAT) across multiple teams, building test automation in JavaScript and Node.js, running it through CI/CD pipelines, and coaching engineers to take a risk-based approach to testing.
What They're Looking For (Non-Negotiables)

• QA leadership: guiding testing across more than one team
• JavaScript and Node.js
• HTML and CSS
• Test automation frameworks: designed and built by you
• CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices
• Enterprise-scale test strategy: written and delivered
• Stakeholder management: reporting progress, risk and defects clearly
• Mentoring and coaching engineers

What You'll Work With

• Automated test suites running against every build
• Accessibility testing for services everyone has to be able to use
• Security testing built into delivery
• Performance, stability and capacity testing
• Usability testing
• Traceability across tests, risks and defects
• Multi-disciplinary agile delivery teams

Nice to Haves

• Public sector digital delivery, ideally against the GDS Service Standard
• Playwright, Cypress or WebdriverIO
• Accessibility tooling: axe, Pa11y or similar
• Performance tools: k6 or JMeter
• Security testing tools: OWASP ZAP or similar

Why Join / Projects
You'll shape how quality works across several teams at once. That means choosing the tooling, deciding where automation adds the most value, and challenging processes that aren't working. The brief is to reuse and evolve what's there rather than follow a fixed playbook.
The scale gives the work weight. These are services people depend on to get support, so a missed accessibility issue or a failed release lands on a lot of people. You'll push teams to understand those risks and let them drive testing decisions.
You'll also have a platform beyond your own teams. The consultancy runs internal communities of practice, and you'll be expected to share what you build, mentor peers and help raise the standard of testing across the wider business.
Employee Benefits

• 25 days holiday
• Private healthcare
• Pension scheme
• Employee rewards and discounts platform

Lead QA Test Engineer | JavaScript, Node.js, Test Automation, CI/CD | ****Active SC required****