Quality Assurance Lead

Organisation: The Football Association
Salary: Competitive
Location: Wembley Stadium, London
Contract type: Permanent (Full time)
Closing date: 1 September 2025
Job Description: Have the digital world at your feet

The FA is seeking a Quality Assurance Lead who will lead and elevate quality assurance practices across delivery teams by driving strategic test planning, providing technical oversight, and fostering continuous improvement to ensure reliable, high-quality software that meets the needs of the FA's users and stakeholders.

What will you be doing?

Lead the QA team in planning, prioritising, and executing comprehensive test strategies for web, mobile, and/or backend applications.
Oversee and coordinate third-party testing efforts across multiple projects to ensure the delivery of high-quality, reliable products to FA customers.
Provide strategic leadership in test design and execution, offering hands-on support in developing automated and manual test cases when required to drive alignment with quality standards and delivery goals.
Champion and implement Shift Left testing by driving early involvement of QA in the software development lifecycle, including requirements gathering, design reviews, code reviews and architecture discussions.
Define and oversee the execution of non-functional testing approaches—including performance, load, accessibility, and monitoring & alerting—driving development pods to embed these as core practices in their workflow.
Act as a quality coach by educating and mentoring cross-functional teams on quality best practices, testability, and automation.
Define, implement, and maintain scalable QA processes, standards, and best practices.
Collaborate with product managers, developers, and stakeholders to translate requirements into test strategies and plans.
Drive test planning, estimation, risk assessments, and monitor execution and defect metrics to ensure release quality.
Proactively communicate quality status, risks, and process effectiveness to QA management and stakeholders.
Own the efficient and effective testing of all changes throughout the release cycle.
Facilitate cross-team communication to resolve quality issues, dependencies, and blockers early.
Lead continuous improvement initiatives for QA processes, automation frameworks, and tooling.
Ensure efficient use of test tools, CI/CD pipelines, and test environments.
Establish QA metrics and dashboards to provide visibility into test coverage, defect trends, release readiness, and production quality.
Execute additional tasks as required to meet the FA's changing priorities.
Comply with all company policies and procedures to ensure that the highest standards of health, safety, and well-being can be maintained.
As part of the FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.

What are we looking for?

Essential for the role:

Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
Knowledge of Shift Left and DevOps quality practices.
Experience in functional and non-functional testing of web based and mobile applications.
Strong understanding of manual and automated testing principles.
Experience with writing and running automated tests.
Excellent problem-solving skills with the ability to investigate complex issues, identify root causes, and drive effective, team-aligned solutions.   
Experience defining test strategies, plans, and risk-based testing approaches.
Experience working in Agile/Scrum teams.
Ability to influence and foster a quality culture across pods.
Proficiency with tools such as Postman, Jira, or TestRail.

Beneficial to have:

Experience with automation tools Playwright (TypeScript/JavaScript) or Cypress.
Experience with cloud platforms (e.g., Azure DevOps, AWS).
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and integrating tests into the build process.
Experience with observability tools (e.g., Datadog, Grafana).
Familiarity with version control systems (e.g., Git, GitHub).

What's in it for you?

We are committed to ensuring everyone can flourish in their roles, to achieve this we have unique office spaces under the arch of the iconic Wembley National Stadium, which is the home of English Football. We are also delighted to offer a world-class, Elite Performance Centre, St. George's Park in Staffordshire which is an exceptional setting to develop and inspire high-performing England teams and leaders.

We pride ourselves in offering a competitive salary as well as great opportunities to develop and grow in your role. But that is not all; we also have a range of exciting benefits, some of which can be found below:

Access to event day tickets at Wembley Stadium, alongside a host of regular internal events throughout the season, encouraging you to connect and learn with your colleagues and look after your mental health and well-being.
Free, nutritious lunches at Wembley Stadium and St. George's Park.
Free private medical cover.
A contributory pension scheme.
An additional 'Thank You' days leave, volunteering days as well as 25 days annual leave (based on a full-time, permanent contract.)
A hybrid working model which offers greater flexibility.

For more information on what it is like to work at The FA, please visit our FA Careers page, https://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/careers

Currently, we are working within a hybrid working model whereby the expectation is to work from your contractual location for part of the week, and as and when required by the team. The remaining days can be worked remotely. We will continue to monitor this model, and it may be adjusted in future if deemed necessary. The contractual location of this role can be found on the FA Careers page.

We are a diverse workplace, aspiring to represent football across the country. The Football Association actively promotes inclusion and diversity, encouraging you to be the best version of yourself at work.

We welcome applications from everyone and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. If you have any particular requirements in respect of the recruitment or interview process, please mention this during your application.

As part of the FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidelines.
How to apply: https://careers.thefa.com/jobs/vacancy/quality-assurance-lead-wnsl0952-wembley-stadium/2707/description/