Senior Systems Tester

The Guinness Partnership; Oldham; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

The Guinness Partnership is seeking a Senior Systems Tester for its IT team, located in Oldham. This full-time role focuses on leading and assuring the quality of system development changes within a hybrid work model.

Ideal candidates will have proven experience in testing IT systems across various technologies, strong leadership abilities, and excellent communication skills. The position requires a background in Agile and includes opportunities to work with diverse integration platforms.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading and line-managing small system test teams.
• Experience in testing IT information systems across diverse technologies.
• Ability to produce high-quality test execution plans, cases, and scripts.

Responsibilities

• Lead, test, and assure quality of system development changes.
• Coordinate small system test teams effectively.
• Ensure high-quality assurance throughout system development.

Skills

Leadership in testing teams

IT information systems testing

Test execution at all levels

High-quality test plans

Knowledge of Agile and Scrum

Good communication skills

Education

Level 2 (C+ or 9-4 GCSE)

ISTQB – ISEB Certified Tester Advanced Level

Job description

About the role

Our IT colleagues are vital to the smooth running and maintenance of the systems that enable The Guinness Partnership to successfully deliver services to our customers and to empower our colleagues to work smarter and more effectively.

We have a new opportunity for a Senior Systems Tester to join our IT team. This is a full‑time, 35 hours per week, 12‑month fixed‑term role based at our Oldham, Bower House office. We are currently working to a hybrid working style.

The overall purpose of the role is to lead, test and assure the quality of all system development changes, updates and deployments to the Guinness IT Information Systems estate.

What We Are Looking For

We are looking for someone with proven experience leading and line‑managing small system test teams, bringing confidence and clarity to coordinating people and workloads. You will have a strong track record of testing IT information systems across diverse technologies and integration platforms, ensuring high‑quality assurance throughout system development. You should be experienced in test execution at all levels from unit and system to integration and regression and be capable of producing high‑quality test plans, cases and scripts. Familiarity with one or more delivery approaches such as Waterfall, SDLC, Agile, Scrum or DevOps is essential, along with the ability to apply these methods effectively in a fast‑moving development environment.

Essential Skills

• Proven experience of leading and line managing small system test teams.
• Proven experience of testing IT information systems across a broad range of technology solutions and their associated integration platforms needed to support the quality assurance of system development delivery.
• Experience of test execution at all levels (Unit, System, Integration and Regression).
• Experience of producing high‑quality test execution plans, cases and scripts.
• Experience of leading and testing within one or more system development delivery approaches such as Waterfall, SDLC, Agile, Scrum, DevOps, etc.
• Good oral and written communication skills.
• Demonstrates the Guinness Behaviours.

Desirable Skills

• Knowledge of Social Housing and Care Sector.
• Broad experience of system testing across a range of technology solutions including ERP, CRM, ESB, Azure, Cloud, AI, IoT, RPA, etc.
• Experience of automated, stress, performance, risk‑based and non‑functional testing.

Essential Qualifications

• Educated to Level 2 (C+ or 9‑4 GCSE) or higher.
• ISTQB – ISEB Certified Tester Advanced Level (CFAL).

Desirable Qualifications

• Educated to degree level in an IT/STEM related degree discipline or equivalent.
• APM / Prince2 / Agile Practitioner / Certified Scrum Master / ITIL or equivalent.

About Us

The Guinness Partnership is one of the leading providers of affordable housing in England. We build and manage homes and provide housing services for nearly 160,000 residents nationwide. Our vision is to deliver great service, provide great homes, be a great business and be a great place to work. Because everything we do is about our residents, our communities and our people, any profit we make is re‑invested in new and existing homes and improving services.

The Guinness Partnership is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to equality of opportunity for all colleagues, and applications from individuals are encouraged regardless of age, disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief and marriage and civil partnerships.