{"id":4020125,"url":"https://alion.io/job/awe-testing-lead","title":"Testing Lead","company":{"id":1799578,"name":"AWE","domain":"awe.co.uk","url":"https://alion.io/company/awe-co-uk","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":null},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Reading, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Shift-Left Security","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-10T14:43:11Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-10","last_verified_at":"2026-11-10T14:43:11Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"If you’d like to be considered for this opportunity we encourage you to apply promptly to avoid disappointment as if applications are high the role will close before the closing date given.\nTesting Lead\nIf you’d like to be considered for this opportunity, we encourage you to apply promptly to avoid disappointment as if applications are high the role will close before the closing date.\nBerkshire\nWorking pattern: AWE operates a 9-day working fortnight. We will consider flexible working requests so that your work may fit in with your lifestyle. Just let us know your preferred working pattern on your application.\nLet us introduce the role\nTo lead and oversee testing across digital and data delivery initiatives, embedding quality assurance practices throughout the delivery lifecycle. The Testing Lead is responsible for defining and maintaining enterprise-wide testing standards, managing the testing team, and ensuring that all digital solutions meet quality, security, and performance expectations prior to deployment.\nKey Accountabilities\nStandards and Policies: Accountable for owning and developing the enterprise testing strategy, standards, and frameworks, ensuring alignment with delivery and design governance.\nTesting Strategy and Governance: Define, own, and continuously improve the enterprise testing strategy, frameworks, and standards, ensuring alignment with delivery governance and architectural principles.\nQuality Assurance Leadership: Ensure testing activities across all programmes and projects meet defined quality, coverage, and assurance standards, including functional and non-functional testing.\nTeam Leadership and Capability Development: Ensure the right skills, tools, and resources are in place to support delivery at scale.\nEnd-to-End Test Lifecycle Management: Oversee all phases of the test lifecycle-planning, execution, defect management, and reporting-across multiple concurrent initiatives.\nOperational Readiness and Risk Mitigation: Ensure testing contributes to secure, reliable, and fit-for-purpose solutions, supporting business readiness and minimising go-live risks.\nCompliance and Audit Readiness: Ensure testing practices comply with internal policies, regulatory requirements, and audit standards.\nKey Responsibilities\nDefine and maintain testing policies, frameworks, test plans, and quality metrics.\nSupport delivery teams in developing robust test strategies, including unit, system, integration, UAT, regression, performance, and security testing.\nChampion modern testing practices such as test automation, continuous testing, and integration into CI/CD pipelines.\nReview and assure the quality of test artefacts including test cases, scripts, traceability matrices, and defect reports.\nPromote early testing engagement and embed “shift-left” practices across the delivery lifecycle.\nEvaluate and implement testing tools and environments that improve efficiency, coverage, and traceability.\nCoordinate test data management and ensure compliance with data privacy regulations.\nCollaborate with cross-functional teams including development, architecture, DevOps, and business stakeholders to ensure quality is a shared responsibility.\nProvide regular reporting on test progress, quality metrics, and risk indicators to senior stakeholders.\nManage third-party testing vendors or offshore teams, ensuring alignment with internal standards and delivery expectations.\nMaintain a repository of reusable test assets and best practices to support continuous improvement.\nSome reasons we think you’ll love it here:\nAWE has a wide range of benefits to suit you. These include:\n9-day working fortnight - meaning you get every other Friday off work, in addition to 270 hours of annual leave.\nMarket leading contributory pension scheme (we will pay between 9% and 13% of your pensionable pay depending on your contributions).\nFamily friendly policies: Maternity Leave - 39 Weeks Full Pay and Paternity Leave - 4 Weeks Full Pay.\nOpportunities for Professional Career Development including funding for annual membership of a relevant professional body.\nEmployee Assistance Programme and Occupational Health Services.\nLife Assurance (4 x annual salary).\nDiscounts - access to savings on a wide range of everyday spending.\nSpecial Leave Policy including paid time off for volunteering, public service (including reserve forces) and caring.\nThe 'Working at AWE' page on our website is where you can find full details in the 'AWE Benefits Guide'.\nAll candidates must be willing and able to obtain and maintain the security clearance required for the role.\nNext steps:\nEveryone who works at AWE brings unique skills and perspectives to the table. We recognise that great people don’t always ‘tick every box’. That’s why we focus on your potential, your fit with our values, your transferable skills as well as your experience. Even if you don’t meet every point above,\nNext steps: \nEveryone who works at AWE brings unique skills and perspectives to the table. We recognise that great people don’t always ‘tick every box’. That’s why we focus on your potential, your fit with our values, your transferable skills as well as your experience. Even if you don’t meet every point above, but you feel that this role and AWE are a great fit for you, please go ahead and apply, we’d love to receive your application.\nImportant things you need to know:\nWe encourage you to apply promptly to avoid disappointment if applications are high and the role therefore closes.\nYou will need to obtain and maintain the necessary security clearance for the role. This will be funded by AWE. The nature of our work does mean you need to be a British Citizen who has been resident in the UK for the past 5 years in order to apply for SC clearance and 10 years for DV. \n We want you to feel comfortable and able to shine during our recruitment process. Please let us know on your application form if you need any adjustments/accommodationsduring the process.\nOur interviews typically take place over Teams and for most roles are a 1 stage process.\nOur ambition is to create workplaces where we recognise and celebrate differences, encourage diverse contributions and our employees feel able to be themselves at work. Westrive to create a genuine culture of openness and inclusion and encourage diverse applicants. Any inclusion information you provide will be stored in accordance with GDPR and kept separate from your application form and CV, and the information will not be shared with anyone involved in interviewing or making hiring decisions.\nPlease note that you must be a British Citizen to apply for a role with us.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6635,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Annual leave","Flexible schedule"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Defense Manufacturing","Nuclear Engineering"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-10T14:43:11Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":15,"reasons":["conf:2","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-10T17:30:27Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/awe-testing-lead","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/awe-testing-lead.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-10T17:30:27Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":6260,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-11T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1799578},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1799578"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fawe-testing-lead"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fawe-testing-lead"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fawe-testing-lead"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/awe-testing-lead\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fawe-testing-lead"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":4020125}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"awe.co.uk","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":4020125},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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