Head of Testing - 12 months - Reading- £600/day

Project overview

Head of Testing - 12 months - Reading- £600/day

We are seeking an experienced Head of Testing to lead and transform the Testing and QA function across enterprise-scale digital transformation programmes for a major UK utility company. You will define the testing strategy, set governance, drive quality best practice and manage testing teams in a complex stakeholder environment. The contract is 6 months, hybrid in Reading, with 2-3 days per week on-site.

Responsibilities

What You Will Ideally Bring:

Contract Details

• Define and implement the testing and quality assurance strategy, with maturity roadmaps and quality metrics
• Build and lead testing teams across multiple programmes
• Set testing standards, methodologies and governance frameworks
• Oversee SIT, UAT, regression, performance, security and automation testing
• Run testing across Agile, Waterfall and hybrid delivery, with executive reporting on quality and risk
• Define quality gates and release readiness criteria, and ensure regulatory compliance
• Manage third-party vendors, system integrators and testing partners
• Promote test automation, CI/CD, shift-left and continuous testing, including AI-driven testing
• Explicit utility industry experience
• 12+ years in software testing and QA, with 5+ years in test management or leadership
• Proven delivery of enterprise-wide testing programmes
• Test strategy and governance, quality engineering, test automation, Agile, DevOps and risk-based testing
• Test management tools: Jira, Azure DevOps, HP ALM, qTest, Zephyr
• Automation: Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Tosca
• CI/CD (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitHub Actions) and performance tools (LoadRunner, JMeter)
• Cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP)
• Experience managing distributed teams
• Strong stakeholder, vendor management, leadership and presentation skills
• AI-assisted testing and large-scale digital transformation experience (desirable)
• Duration: 12 months
• Day Rate: £600 per day
• Determination: Inside IR35
• Location: Hybrid, 2-3 days per week onsite, Reading
• Start Date: ASAP

Project details

• Start: ASAP
• Duration: 12 Months
• Location: Reading, UK, GB
• Rate: 75-75 EUR/h