Head of QA and Test Automation
About this role
For over 30 years, we’ve partnered with some of the world’s best-known names in travel, financial services, and retail, from Mastercard and British Airways to Sephora and Radisson Hotel Group. With 2,000 dedicated people across 20 global locations, we’re united by a shared purpose: to make every journey, experience, and connection more rewarding. We’re now looking for a Head of QA and Test Automation, a leader who believes quality is everyone’s responsibility, not just a final step in the process. The Opportunity This role is pivotal to shaping how Collinson designs, builds, and delivers world-class digital experiences. You’ll lead our global Quality Engineering and Test Automation strategy, building a high-performing QA function that enables confidence, scalability, and innovation across our products and platforms. As an experienced leader, you’ll coach teams, embed quality standards at every stage of delivery, and champion automation as a key enabler of speed and excellence. Your voice will influence major architectural and strategic decisions, ensuring that quality is baked into every product we release. What you will do: Define and lead Collinson's end-to-end QA and Test Automation strategy. Build and grow a talented, diverse team of SDETs and QA professionals. Partner with Engineering, Product, and Delivery to design for quality from day one. Guide SDETs on the right testing approaches for their context - whether that's contract testing, integration testing, schema validation, or something else entirely. Build release readiness as a discipline - creating cross-squad visibility so we ship confidently. Shape the test strategy - solving the problem of fragile e2e tests by ensuring the right team members own the right layer of testing. Drive BDD adoption as a quality mindset - a collaborative approach to defining what done means. Develop a thriving community of practice that promotes learning and inclusion. Transform our testing culture - from gatekeeping to enablement. Who you are: You investigate before you prescribe - leading with curiosity A coach and mentor who brings out the best in others. A collaborator who values diverse opinions and voices. Confident in decision-making - even under pressure. Passionate about continuous improvement and automation excellence. Committed to creating safe, inclusive spaces where every team member can thrive. Why join us: We know that a person’s potential is more than the sum of their past experiences. If you meet most but not all these points, we still encourage you to apply, your unique perspective could make the difference. What Collinson Offers: Flexible and hybrid working options Work from anywhere – 8 weeks a year Generous parental leave and family-friendly policies Career development, mentorship, and training A supportive, inclusive culture with employee resource groups and diversity initiatives. Collinson is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes differences in all their forms including: colour, race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, neurodivergence, family status, age, individuals with disabilities and people from all backgrounds, cultures and experiences as we strongly believe this contributes to our on-going success. We are focused on continually evolving our purpose driven, high performing culture, providing an environment where our people have the opportunity to achieve their full potential and do interesting and meaningful work. Our company values are: Take Action, Do the right thing, One team and Be insight led. These help guide everything we do internally in terms of how we think, act and interact, right through to how we deliver value to our customers and clients. In your application, please feel free to note which pronouns you use (For example - she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/theirs, etc).
What this role is, and what else it is called
Employers in London advertise this kind of work as Automation Test Engineer, Senior Al QA Engineer, Junior Al QA Engineer and Quality Assurance Executive Assistant too, so it is worth searching more than one wording. It is a head-of or director level QA & Software Testing role in London, advertised as hybrid, splitting time between home and the office.
How this role compares to the market
London has 1,270 live IT vacancies across 688 source domains, with a median annual salary midpoint of £55,000. Browse London roles.
Head-of and director-level roles make up 108 of the live UK IT market.
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Detected on Collinson's careers page. ProdReady Recruitment lists this vacancy as an aggregator and is not the employer; applications go to the employer's own site. More IT jobs in London.