Business Quality Assurance Manager

First Central; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading insurance company seeks a Business Quality Assurance Manager in Manchester to ensure software delivery aligns with quality standards. This role entails collaborating with cross-functional teams to embed quality practices in a cloud-native environment, focusing on BDD and risk-based testing strategies. The ideal candidate will possess excellent leadership, analytical, and communication skills, with a strong emphasis on stakeholder management.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in QA, Quality Consulting, or Business Testing roles.
• Experience in Agile/SAFe methodology preferred.
• Familiarity with DevOps practices.

Responsibilities

• Ensure adherence to quality standards across value streams.
• Own and develop 'End to End' test strategy.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to validate business requirements.

Skills

Leadership

Analytical Skills

Communication

Supplier Management

Stakeholder Management

Problem Solving

Education

ISEB or equivalent testing qualification

Tools

Cloud Platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)

CI/CD tools

Job description

We’re 1st Central, a market-leading insurance company utilising smart data and technology at pace. Rapid growth has been based on giving our 1.4 million customers exactly what they want: great value insurance with an excellent service. And that’s the same for our colleagues too; we won Insurance Employer of the Year at the British Insurance Awards 2024 and our Glassdoor score is pretty mega too!

We're looking for a B u siness Quality Assurance Manager who'll ensure that the software delivery lifecycle (SDLC) across the value streams aligns with business expectations for quality, functionality, and delivery. Acting as both a consultant and quality auditor, the Business Quality Assurance Manager will partner with the cross-functional value stream teams and Quality Engineering to ensure the right test coverage, adherence to best practices, and alignment to business goals across the Focus platform and associated services.

Operating in a cloud-native, BDD-enabled environment, this senior role is responsible for embedding quality from a business perspective ensuring practices such as BDD, test traceability, risk-based coverage, and quality metrics are applied consistently across teams to enable reliable and high-value software delivery.

We value flexible working arrangements, so you can choose to work remotely or maybe you live within a commutable distance from one of our offices in Salford Quays, Manchester, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, or Guernsey , and want to work in the office occasionally.

Core skills were looking for to succeed in the role:

• Excellent planning and control expertise

• Excellent leadership and people management skills, including ability to motivate and inspire teams.

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills

• Excellent Supplier Management skills

• Excellent stakeholder influencing and management skills.

• Formal Testing qualification such as ISEB or equivalent is desirable.

• Ability to assess, audit, and uplift quality practices across distributed teams

• Experience of Business-Technical Bridging

• BDD Coaching & Collaboration

• Test Coverage Analysis – Evaluate adequacy of test scenarios, data, and traceability to requirements

• Reporting & Communication

• Cloud-Aware Quality Thinking

• DevOps Familiarity with working knowledge of how testing fits into the broader DevOps ecosystem

What’s involved:

• You’ll be working with the Quality Engineering Lead and Focus Product Owner community to own, develop and maintain an ‘End to End’ test strategy and approach for new capabilities and initiatives that span the Focus Application and Services

• You’ll be responsible for maintaining department risk registers (as applicable), providing evidence and commentary for controls, updates for Mitigation Actions and maintaining control matrices and attestations. Also, ensuring that your colleagues are aware of their responsibility to i dentify and report risk.

• You’ll own the auditing and assessment to the adherence to quality standards, testing practices, and SDLC policies across value streams.

• You’ll provide guidance to teams on business requirements and any manual testing, supporting with risk-based test coverage analysis, and quality practices aligned with business priorities

• You’ll be responsible for ensuring that the functional and non-functional test coverage aligns with business requirements, regulatory obligations, and user expectations.

• You’ll promote consistent use of BDD practices, facilitating collaboration between business, QA, and development to ensure shared understanding of requirements.

• You’ll own the definition and reporting of cross-team quality business KPIs, offering actionable insights to improve delivery quality and reduce business risk.

• You’ll conduct regular audits and reviews of test documentation, traceability, and quality practices. Identify gaps and recommend improvements across the SDLC.

• You’ll work closely with DevOps and QE to embed testing early in the lifecycle and ensure smooth quality integration into CI/CD pipelines.

• You’ll be responsible for working with the Focus Product owners and key business stakeholders to ensure delivered software meets business objectives and customer needs through proactive engagement, validation, and feedback loops.

• You’ll support the release and regression processes across the Focus application and associated services

• You’ll support Service Delivery and the Resilience team with the speedy resolution of Focus IMTs ensuring RCAs are reviewed and appropriate remediation is performed to strengthen controls and processes across the SDLC

• You'll comply with the requirements, and act in accordance with , the Group Code of Conduct and Fitness and Propriety policies at all times

• You’ll ensure compliance with Company Policies, Values and guidelines and other relevant standards/ regulations always

Experience & Knowledge

• Demonstrable experience of software testing in Agile/SAFe methodology preferably in Insurance or Financial services

• Experience of involvement in NFT (Non-Functional Testing) and API testing is desirable but not mandatory.

• Excellent experience of all stages of the software development lifecycle in an Agile environment

• 7+ years in QA, Quality Consulting, or Business-Focused Testing roles in agile/DevOps environments

• Strong experience in collaborating with both business and engineering teams in a matrixed or federated model

• Deep understanding of test strategy, planning, risk-based coverage and traceability

• Solid hands-on or coaching experience with BDD (e.g., Gherkin, Cucumber, SpecFlow) would be preferrable

• Knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and implications for testing and quality assurance

• Familiarity with modern DevOps practices including CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and shift-left testing

• Exposure to regulated or compliance-heavy environments

• Demonstrable experience of working with web-based applications

• Some experience of software testing automation tools is desirable but not mandatory.

• Line management experience of minimum 6 team members

• Knowledge of FCA requirements (including TCF)

Skills

• Excellent planning and control expertise

• Excellent leadership and people management skills, including ability to motivate and inspire teams.

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills

• Excellent Supplier Management skills

• Excellent stakeholder influencing and management skills.

• Formal Testing qualification such as ISEB or equivalent is desirable.

• Ability to assess, audit, and uplift quality practices across distributed teams

• Experience of Business-Technical Bridging

• BDD Coaching & Collaboration

• Test Coverage Analysis – Evaluate adequacy of test scenarios, data, and traceability to requirements

• Reporting & Communication

• Cloud-Aware Quality Thinking

• DevOps Familiarity with working knowledge of how testing fits into the broader DevOps ecosystem

Behaviours

• Commercially focussed and results driven

• Self-motivated and enthusiastic

• Acts as a role model and motivates others.

• Embraces, embeds, and incorporates the Company values.

• An organised and pro-active approach

• Leads and influences up to a senior level.

• A flexible approach and positive attitude

• Able to balance attention to detail whilst retaining focus on broader needs.

• Takes initiative to make decisions.

• Strives to deliver process improvement.

So, if you’re up for the challenge and would like to join our vibrant and busy team, we want to hear from you today.

What can we do for you?

People first. Always. We’re passionate about our colleagues and know the best people deserve an extraordinary working environment. We owe it to them so that’s what we offer. Our workplaces are energetic, inspirational, supportive. To get a taste of the advantages you’ll enjoy, take a look at all our perks in full here .

Intrigued? Our Talent team can tell you everything you need to know about what we want and what we’re offering, so feel free to get in touch.