Test Manager

NATIONAL TRUST; Swindon; On-site; GBP 56,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a leading organization as a Test Manager, helming our IT team's testing capability. In this strategic leadership role, you'll inspire and evolve testing to drive quality, innovation, and continuous improvement across our varied technologies.

Benefits

Substantial pension scheme up to 10% basic salary

Free entry to National Trust places for you and your children

Rental deposit loan scheme

Flexible working whenever possible

Holiday allowance up to 32 days

Qualifications

• Proven leadership experience in managing diverse testing teams.
• Strong understanding of modern test automation frameworks.
• Experience with test management and ALM tools.

Responsibilities

• Define and deliver the strategic roadmap for IT testing.
• Lead functional, non-functional, and UAT testing.
• Drive test automation into Continuous Improvement pipelines.

Skills

Leadership

Test Automation

Agile Methodologies

Test Management Tools

Risk-Based Testing

Tools

Jira

Azure DevOps

Zephyr

Job description

We’re looking for a Test Manager to join our IT team.

You’ll be a dynamic and forward-thinking Test Manager who will inspire, lead and evolve our testing capability into its next phase of maturity. This is a strategic leadership role, ideal for someone dedicated to delivering quality, innovation, and continuous improvement.

Internally you’ll be known as Principal Tester.

Salary:circa £56,000

What it's like to work here

Our IT ecosystem supports a complex and multi-faceted organisation with a breadth of technologies. You’ll lead a team of 6; including Test Leads, Engineers and Analysts.

Your contractual location will be our head office in Swindon and there will be an expectation for you to attend the office. However, there is flexibility on where you are based at other times. You’ll be required to work at a National Trust location for 40-60% of your working week. This will be discussed in more detail at interview.

What you'll be doing

As Test Manager you’ll define and deliver the strategic roadmap for our IT testing; including resource and capacity management, ensuring alignment with our digital transformation ambitions. You’ll be responsible for test strategy, planning and execution across functional, non-functional, and user acceptance testing (UAT). Leading the Testing Community of Practice to advance innovation, knowledge sharing and continuous improvement and defining and tracking KPIs to measure test effectiveness, quality and risk.

You’ll drive test automation into Continuous Improvement/Continuous Delivery pipelines. Working closely with our operations and delivery teams you’ll ensure testing is embedded early in the lifecycle and that risks are clearly communicated and mitigated.

Who we're looking for

We’d love to hear from you if you have:

• Proven leadership experience in managing diverse testing teams and third-party suppliers.
• A strong understanding of modern test automation frameworks and how they integrate with Agile and DevOps practices.
• Experience with test management and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools such as Jira, Zephyr, Azure DevOps, or similar.
• The ability to lead functional, non-functional, end to end and exploratory testing across a portfolio of change.
• Experience in risk-based testing and compliance
• A track record of mentoring and upskilling test professionals and fostering a culture of continuous learning.
• Ability to confidently communicate with technical and non-technical stakeholders, including reporting on quality metrics and test outcomes.

The package

The National Trust has the motto ‘For everyone, for ever’ at its heart. We’re working hard to create an inclusive culture, where everyone feels they belong. It’s important that our people reflect and represent the diversity of the communities and audiences we serve. We welcome and value difference, so when we say we’re for everyone, we want everyone to be welcome in our teams too.

• Substantial pension scheme of up to 10% basic salary
• Free entry to National Trust places for you, a guest and your children (under 18)
• Rental deposit loan scheme
• Season ticket loan
• EV car lease scheme
• Perks at work discounts such as gym memberships, shopping discount codes, cinema discounts
• Holiday allowance up to 32 days relating to length of service, plus holiday purchase scheme, subject to meeting minimum criteria.
• Flexible working whenever possible
• Employee assistance programme
• Free parking at most Trust places