Automation Test Lead

Are you a senior automation and quality engineering professional who wants their work to make a real difference to patients, the public, and the UK research community?

The Health Research Authority (HRA) is looking for an Automation Test Lead to play a pivotal role in transforming how health and social care research is approved and delivered across the UK. This is a senior leadership role within HRA Digital, working on a major national programme to build a new Integrated Research Application and Workflow system designed using microservices architecture.

As Automation Test Lead, you will provide strategic and technical leadership for test automation and non-functional testing across multiple engineering squads. You will own and evolve our core automation frameworks (including Cucumber, Playwright and K6), embed quality engineering practices into our CI/CD pipelines, and help ensure confident, reliable releases for critical national services.

You will set standards, coach and guide engineers, and work closely with developers, product managers and delivery leads to ensure quality is built in from the start. You will also act as a key escalation point for risks and deputise for the Head of Test when required., In this role, you will:

• Set and maintain test quality and engineering standards across multiple agile squads
• Own and continuously improve automated functional and non-functional test frameworks, integrated into CI/CD pipelines
• Lead and support Automation Engineers, ensuring high-quality, maintainable and reliable test automation
• Define and manage automation and QA branching strategies to support parallel releases and complex delivery schedules
• Champion an automation-first and continuous testing approach, enabling early risk identification
• Own and manage regression suites, keeping them lean, relevant and valuable
• Support squads across UI, API, integration and performance testing using modern tools such as Playwright, Postman, GitHub, Azure DevOps and K6
• Review automation code and test design, reducing flakiness and technical debt
• Work closely with technical and non-technical stakeholders, clearly communicating quality risks and test outcomes
• Contribute to HRA Digital test strategy, quality assurance documentation and wider test governance, Please refer to the attached job description and person specification documents for full details about this role.

When completing your application, ensure you clearly demonstrate how your experience and skills align with the criteria outlined for this position.

We recognise that generative AI tools can be helpful in supporting applicants during the recruitment process, particularly for tasks such as proofreading, structuring, or refining written responses. However, we encourage candidates to use AI responsibly and sparingly. Applications should reflect your authentic voice, personal experiences, and genuine qualifications. Over reliance on AI-generated content can result in generic or inaccurate submissions that fail to meet the criteria or convey your individuality. Misrepresentation of skills, knowledge, or experience, including through AI-generated content, may lead to the rejection of your application, withdrawal of your offer, or your dismissal if you do start with us. If you choose to use AI, please ensure it enhances rather than replaces your own input, and be transparent about its use where appropriate. False and insincere examples go against our values of integrity and transparency.

Important information

We are unable to offer employment under any sponsorship arrangement as we do not hold a sponsorship licence. Applications requiring sponsorship will not be considered.

Applications that do not clearly demonstrate how the essential criteria outlined in the person specification are met will not be shortlisted., The HRA is made up of five directorates: Approvals, Chief Executive, Digital, Policy and Partnerships and Resources.

This role sits within HRA Digital. The digital directorate is responsible for developing, delivering and supporting complex solutions within the HRAs portfolio of UK-wide information systems for health and care research. This includes a major programme to build new systems, and to achieve the successful migration and eventual closure of current systems. The directorate owns, develops, and delivers the HRAs digital strategy in line with government digital and functional standards.

The HRA Digital team is a collaborative, supportive team consisting of HRA employees, secondees, contractors and vendors.

• Educated to master's level or equivalent in an Information Systems (IS), Information Technology (IT), Computer Science discipline or demonstrable equivalent professional experience operating at this level
• Certified in ISTQB Foundation
• Certification in Microsoft technologies and/or automation tooling (e.g. Azure, Playwright, Cucumber, performance tooling) or demonstrable equivalent experience., * Expert-level knowledge and hands-on experience in designing, developing, maintaining and evolving scalable automation frameworks, with clear ownership of standards, structure, and best practices.
• Strong understanding of test pyramids, testability, and automation at multiple levels (API, UI, integration).
• Strong working knowledge of software development using the Microsoft technology stack, including: C#, JavaScript, TypeScript, Node.js (or equivalent).
• Demonstrated experience in continuous coding, refactoring, and improving automation codebases.
• Proven ability to conduct automation script and code reviews, ensuring consistency, quality, maintainability, and alignment with agreed standards.
• Comprehensive knowledge of code version control and collaboration tools, including: GitHub and Azure DevOps.
• Strong experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines, enabling continuous testing and fast feedback.
• Working knowledge of SQL and relational databases, including test data creation, validation, and environment management.

Experience

Essential

• Proven experience owning and maintaining automated regression suites, ensuring reliability, relevance, and performance over time.
• Proven experience owning and maintaining automated regression suites, ensuring reliability, relevance, and performance over time. 55.Ability to identify and reduce test flakiness, technical debt, and maintenance overhead within automation solutions.
• Significant experience working as an Automated Test Engineer, progressing to a lead or senior role within a test or quality engineering team.
• Experience managing automated test execution within build and release pipelines, including reporting and failure triage.

Knowledge, Skills and Expertise

Essential

• Proven experience defining automation strategy, including test coverage, tooling selection, test data management, and integration with delivery pipelines.
• Advanced, hands-on proficiency with: Cucumber (BDD) - feature design, step definition best practices, reusability and maintainability. Playwright - modern UI automation, cross-browser testing, stability and performance. K6 and JMeter - performance, load, and non-functional testing. BrowserStack or equivalent cloud-based test execution platforms.

Analytical and Judgemental Skills

Essential

• Strong judgement in translating complex business and technical requirements into clear, testable automated scenarios.
• Ability to prioritise effectively in a fast-paced environment with changing requirements and uncertainty.

Interpersonal Skills

Essential

• Strong technical leadership skills with the ability to: Support and guide test engineers in automation design, coding practices, and tooling usage. Act as a subject matter expert for automation and non-functional testing.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including: Written English skills sufficient to summarise complex technical and quality issues into clear, concise documentation. Verbal English skills to confidently articulate technical concepts, procedural issues, and participate in complex technical discussions with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

At the HRA, we are committed to fostering a supportive and inclusive working environment where we actively invest in the development and empowerment of our staff, enabling them to perform at their best. We strive to promote a healthy workplace culture where wellbeing, collaboration, and professional growth are valued and encouraged. Working at the HRA, we support flexible working, recognising that home based or hybrid arrangements provides us with the most productive environment to work well. Where possible, we'll offer a working pattern that suits you. The HRA offers home based contracts for all locations. Newcastle, Manchester and Nottingham based staff can be office based and hybrid working arrangements are also possible. We encourage you to speak with us to explore how this could be accommodated.