Head of QA - Leeds - Pharmacy2U

Description

Role: Head of QA

Location: Leeds, hybrid working 2-3 days per week in the office

Salary: DOE plus extensive benefits

Contract type: Permanent

Employment type: Full time

Working hours: hours per week, Mon-Fri

Do you want to work for the nation's largest online pharmacy ensuring excellence for all our patients? We're a market leader in the pharmacy world, with 25 years' experience, helping over 1.4 million patients in England manage their NHS prescriptions from request through to delivery.  We are Great Place to Work certified as we consider colleague experience a top priority every day.  Our people are fundamental to our success and ensuring we achieve our vision to be a world leading, patient-centric digital healthcare provider.  We are committed to continuing to develop a positive, open and honest working environment for all.

The Head of Quality Assurance (QA) will lead Pharmacy2U's technology quality assurance function, ensuring that all systems, products, and processes meet the highest standards of reliability, compliance, and patient safety.

This role is responsible for defining and embedding the QA strategy, establishing robust governance, and driving continuous improvement across the software delivery lifecycle.

A key element of this role is to advance test automation and intelligent assurance practices, increasing delivery speed and consistency while maintaining absolute quality control and compliance.

The successful candidate will inspire a culture of excellence, accountability, and innovation, ensuring that quality assurance is not just a stage of delivery, but a mindset embedded throughout the organisation.

What's in it for you?

Occupational sick pay

Enhanced maternity and paternity pay

Contributory pension

Discounted insurance (Aviva)

Employee discount site

Discounted gyms (via our blue light card and benefits schemes)

Employee assistance programme

In-house mental health support

Free onsite parking

Health and wellbeing initiatives

Social events throughout the year

Cycle to work scheme

Green car scheme*(subject to minimum earnings)

Registration fees paid (GPhC, NMC, CIPD etc)

Long service bonus

Refer a friend bonus

Blue light card

Hybrid working

Commitment to CPD/training

25 days annual leave increasing with service

Annual leave buy and sell scheme

Discounts & Exclusive offers at The Springs, Leeds

25% Discount & health & beauty purchases

25% Discount on Pharmacy2U Private Online Doctor Services

What you'll be doing?

Strategic Leadership

o   Define and own the Quality Assurance (QA) strategy, ensuring alignment with Pharmacy2U's technology and business objectives.

o   Establish quality standards, governance policies, and best practices that ensure safe, compliant, and efficient delivery.

o   Drive adoption of risk-based, automated, and data-led QA approaches to enhance testing coverage and efficiency.

o   Champion a culture of quality-first thinking across all delivery teams, balancing agility with compliance and control.

o   Represent the QA function at senior forums, ensuring quality considerations shape strategic technology decisions.

Governance and Assurance

o   Develop and implement robust QA governance frameworks, ensuring effective control and oversight across all change initiatives.

o   Oversee the testing lifecycle (including planning, execution, and reporting), ensuring thorough validation of all releases.

o   Define and track measurable quality metrics and KPIs to assess performance, risk exposure, and continuous improvement.

o   Ensure compliance with relevant regulations, standards, and policies (including data protection, clinical safety, and audit requirements).

o   Conduct post-implementation reviews to capture lessons learned and prevent recurrence of issues.

Automation and Test Strategy

o   Lead the organisation-wide strategy for test automation, ensuring its integration into all suitable stages of delivery.

o   Define automation goals and priorities to optimise speed, reduce manual testing effort, and increase reliability.

o   Oversee selection, implementation, and governance of automation tools and frameworks across products and platforms.

o   Partner with engineering and DevOps teams to embed automated testing within CI/CD pipelines, ensuring continuous assurance and release readiness.

o   Promote a pragmatic, value-based approach to automation — combining manual, exploratory, and automated testing for comprehensive coverage.

o   Track automation ROI and drive maturity improvements through measurable efficiency and quality gains.

Team Leadership and Development

o   Build and lead a high-performing QA team, ensuring clear roles, accountability, and progression opportunities.

o   Inspire a culture of excellence, ownership, and continuous professional development.

o   Oversee budgets, promoting innovation and efficient use of resources.

o   Support and mentor QA colleagues to deliver consistent quality outcomes.

Delivery and Execution

o   Embed QA planning early within the delivery lifecycle to ensure proactive risk identification and mitigation.

o   Collaborate with Product, Engineering, and Delivery leads to ensure every product and release meets the defined quality thresholds.

o   Support major programmes and releases through structured quality gates and evidence-based reporting.

o   Ensure that automation, test data, and environment management are integral to delivery planning.

o   Lead post-release reviews, ensuring lessons learned are captured and improvements actioned.

Stakeholder Management

o   Build and maintain trusted relationships with senior stakeholders across the business.

o   Communicate quality risks and outcomes clearly and constructively, ensuring informed decision-making.

o   Promote transparency and accountability through structured reporting and regular governance forums.

o   Act as an advisor to business leaders on quality standards, risk management, and assurance best practices.

Technology Partners and Vendors

o   Manage QA relationships with key delivery partners and vendors, ensuring alignment with Pharmacy2U's standards.

o   Govern performance, quality, and contractual adherence of third-party testing services.

o   Escalate and resolve quality or delivery issues in partnership with commercial and delivery teams.

o   Oversee automation and testing service contracts, ensuring clear accountability and measurable outcomes.

o   Escalate and resolve partner-related performance or delivery challenges promptly.

Resourcing and Continuous Improvement

o   Develop and maintain a scalable QA resourcing model, blending in-house talent and external capacity effectively.

o   Continuously review QA and automation processes to identify efficiency opportunities and best practice adoption.

o   Introduce modern QA tooling and data insights to improve visibility, speed, and decision-making.

o   Lead a culture of continuous improvement by capturing and acting upon lessons learned across programmes.

Who are we looking for?

• Proven leadership in enterprise-scale QA or Test Management.
• Strong knowledge of manual, automated, and performance testing methodologies.
• Strategic understanding of automation principles, frameworks, and continuous testing practices.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder influence at senior and executive level.
• Strong governance, analytical, and risk assessment capabilities.
• Skilled in building and managing high-performing, multidisciplinary QA teams.
• Data-driven decision-maker with focus on measurable outcomes.
• Commercially astute with experience managing significant budgets.
• Experience of working in a pressured environment, delivering against tight deadlines
• Extensive leadership experience in QA/test management within complex technology environments.
• Proven success embedding automation strategies and scaling automated testing across multiple delivery teams.
• Experience defining and executing QA governance across regulated or high-availability environments.
• Hands-on familiarity with QA tooling (e.g., Katalon, Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Postman, JMeter).
• Experience integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps).
• Strong knowledge of testing principles, quality management systems, and governance frameworks.
• Understanding of risk-based testing, defect management, and release readiness assessment.
• Knowledge of test management tools (e.g., Jira, Zephyr, Xray, TestRail).
• Familiarity with regulatory and compliance frameworks (e.g., GDPR, ISO, GxP, NHS Data Security Standards).

What happens next?

Please click apply and if we think you are a good match, we will be in touch to arrange an interview.

Applicants must prove they have the right to live in the UK.

All successful applicants will be required to undergo a DBS check.

Unsolicited agency applications will be treated as a gift.