Test & Quality Assurance Manager

Agria Pet Insurance; Kent; Hybrid; GBP 45,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading specialist in pet insurance seeks a Test and Quality Assurance Manager in Kent to drive automation-led testing strategies. The role involves mentoring a QA team, enhancing product reliability, and ensuring quality in a fast-paced environment. The ideal candidate will champion continuous improvement and lead a new era of testing practices, contributing to our commitment to service excellence and innovation.

Benefits

25 days annual leave plus bank holidays

Option to buy/sell annual leave

Pension and life assurance scheme

25% off pet insurance

Health and wellbeing support

Qualifications

• Extensive experience managing end-to-end testing cycles.
• Strong track record in automation-led testing strategies.
• Deep technical expertise with testing tools.

Responsibilities

• Define and deliver an automation-led test approach.
• Lead the selection and optimization of automated test tools.
• Champion quality early in the software development lifecycle.

Skills

Automation Testing

Quality Assurance

Agile Methodologies

Collaboration

Analytical Skills

Education

Relevant Degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Selenium

Cypress

JIRA

TestRail

Azure DevOps

Job description

Are you ready to shape the future of quality assurance in a fast-growing, innovative business? We are looking for a highly skilled and technically astute Test and Quality Assurance Manager to lead the way in modern, automation-first testing strategies across our technology platforms.

In this pivotal role, you will drive the development of a robust test automation roadmap, mentor and guide a talented QA team, and champion continuous improvement to deliver quality at speed. Your expertise will ensure scalable, efficient, and future-ready testing practices that support rapid deployment cycles, digital innovation, and platform resilience.

Your leadership will be instrumental in building a best-in-class QA function—one that enhances product reliability, strengthens customer satisfaction, and keeps us at the forefront of technological excellence.

Here at Agria Pet Insurance, we work a hybrid model and all attend the Aylesbury office once a week, every Wednesday.

What you'll be doing:

• Define and deliver a strategic, automation-led test approach supporting both legacy and cloud-native platforms, aligned with business objectives and agile delivery methods.
• Design and manage comprehensive test campaigns covering scope, resource estimation, risk mitigation, and progress tracking using tools like burn down charts and dashboards.
• Lead the selection, implementation, and optimisation of automated test tools and frameworks (e.g., Selenium, Cypress, Playwright) to improve coverage, reduce cycle times, and support CI/CD pipelines.
• Champion the shift-left testing mindset, embedding quality early in the software development lifecycle through close collaboration with developers, analysts, and process owners.
• Build and maintain strong test environments, automation suites, and test data strategies, in collaboration with DevOps and IT teams.
• Ensure effective and consistent QA delivery across Unit, Integration, System, Regression, Performance, and UAT phases.
• Provide hands-on leadership to a growing QA team, fostering high standards of execution, accountability, and technical excellence.
• Act as a trusted QA advisor across project and product teams, supporting test planning, requirement definition, risk analysis, and defect triage.
• Monitor and report on test metrics, automation coverage, quality KPIs, and potential risks to senior stakeholders.
• Drive a culture of innovation by continuously reviewing and improving QA practices, and upskilling the team in test automation and advanced QA tools.
• Lead the defect lifecycle process from identification and logging to resolution and retesting.
• Ensure testing practices comply with internal policies, regulatory requirements, and industry standards.
• Champion technical excellence, ensuring the QA function can support scaling business demands, including AI initiatives and emerging digital platforms.
• Lead and own administrative tasks, including generating and maintaining test reports, tracking progress, and ensuring accurate documentation for quality assurance activities. Take full ownership of preparing month-end reports to track and communicate testing outcomes.

What we're looking for:

• Extensive experience managing end-to-end testing cycles, with a strong track record in automation-led testing strategies.
• Deep technical expertise with tools such as Selenium, Cypress, TestRail, JIRA, and integration with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, Azure DevOps).
• Strong understanding of modern testing methodologies (e.g., TDD, BDD, exploratory testing) and quality engineering principles.
• Demonstrable experience in leading automation frameworks development and scaling across multiple products and teams.
• Experience in Agile and DevOps environments, ideally within a regulated or financial services setting.
• Excellent analytical and diagnostic skills with a structured, data-driven approach to QA problem-solving.
• Skilled communicator and collaborator, with a proven ability to influence cross-functional stakeholders and translate technical insights into business outcomes.
• High levels of adaptability, prioritisation, and strategic thinking to manage complex, multi-stream projects.
• Knowledge of the pet insurance industry or wider financial services is a bonus.

Why choose Agria Pet:

Agria Pet Insurance is one of the UK's leading specialist pet insurance providers. We only provide lifetime insurance for animals, so truly understand and care about our customers and their beloved pets—especially as most of our team are pet parents, and we're all animal-lovers. Our passion for pets means that we are trusted by The Royal Kennel Club and many other significant affinity partners to provide lifetime pet insurance in their names.

Working closely with animal welfare organisations, vets, and breeders, gives us deep insight into what's best for pets. And we give back too—including supporting hundreds of animal rescues, protecting over 100,000 rescued animals, and through donations of over £2m to animal charities.

We are a strong, growing business, having doubled our GWP in the last 5 years, with a supportive ethos and family feel. We became one of the UK’s Best Workplaces in 2023, 2024, and again in 2025, were awarded Most Trusted Pet Insurer in 2021, and we have the top 4 slots on Which? Best Buy pet insurance. We are also proud to be the only carbon-positive pet insurer in the UK.

What we offer:

• 25 days annual leave which increases with service, plus bank holidays
• Opportunity to buy/sell up to 5 days annual leave per year
• Pension and Life Assurance scheme
• Access to 25% off insuring your pet with Agria. Friends and family are also entitled to a discount.
• Support for health and wellbeing, including a Health Cash Plan, mental health support, and platforms like Headspace.