Test Manager at Bright Purple, Birmingham, £500–£550 per day

SC Cleared - Test Manager | Hybrid – Birmingham | £500–£550 per day, Outside IR35

SC Clearance is essential for this role, candidates without active SC clearance cannot be considered.

We're looking for a hands-on Senior Test Manager to own end-to-end test delivery across multiple projects, working hybrid from Birmingham area. Automation focused Test Manager!

The role

You'll define and drive test strategy across a portfolio of projects, leading manual and automation teams while managing stakeholders from client, PM, BA and technical teams through to sign-off. This is a leadership role that stays close to the detail, reviewing test plans, automation frameworks and defect reports, not just chairing meetings about them.

What you'll be doing

Strategic & delivery management: defining test strategies aligned to project objectives, owning the full test lifecycle (planning, estimation, execution, defect management, reporting and sign-off), and proactively managing and escalating test-related risks across engagements.

Team leadership: leading, mentoring and coaching manual, automation and performance test teams, reviewing test plans, automation frameworks and performance scripts, and supporting skills development across the team.

Governance & reporting: owning test metrics, dashboards and status reporting for internal and client stakeholders, maintaining traceability between requirements, test cases and defects, and

holding quality gate ownership through CI/CD.

What we're looking for:

• Active SC clearance, non-negotiable for this role
• Proven experience managing QA teams across multiple projects or streams
• Strong grounding in test automation and tooling (e.g. Selenium, Appium, Postman, Cucumber, NeoLoad) and CI/CD (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, Git)
• Working knowledge of API, performance, security and accessibility testing
• Advanced understanding of SDLC/STLC and experience across Agile, SAFe or hybrid delivery

The details

• Day rate: £500–£550/day, Outside IR35
• Location: Birmingham, hybrid working
• Clearance: SC cleared essential, please do not apply without this

Interested, or know a Test Manager who fits the bill? Please apply