Programme Manager

Role Overview

• Act as the single point of accountability for testing transparency and assurance at programme and portfolio level.
• Identify and actively manage the critical path for testing across a complex technology delivery.
• Provide senior stakeholders with clear, evidence‑based views of quality, progress, risk and readiness to deploy, including early visibility of delivery risk driven by testing or unresolved dependencies.
• Own and lead the Testing Reporting Office (TRO), delivering accurate, timely and decision‑focused reporting on test readiness, execution and quality.
• Own and maintain a programme‑level dependency map linked to testing outcomes, covering people, systems, data, environments, suppliers and external constraints.
• Act as the primary escalation and resolution point for stakeholder concerns related to testing readiness, cross‑programme dependencies and delivery risk.
• Proactively manage stakeholder expectations, challenging unrealistic commitments and aligning scope, timelines and quality outcomes to agreed risk appetite.
• Ensure testing is planned early, with dependencies explicitly reflected in plans, milestones and testing strategies.
• Actively manage cross‑programme and cross‑portfolio dependencies, sequencing delivery realistically, protecting the critical path, and escalating conflicts early with clear options and impacts.
• Hold delivery teams and suppliers accountable for test readiness, defect management and exit criteria, actively challenging overly optimistic test plans and preventing testing compression to protect delivery dates.
• Drive alignment across technology, business and third‑party teams to reduce late integration risk.
• Mandate that releases are supported by credible assurance of quality, not solely milestone completion.
• Work with the Senior Test Manager to reduce late‑stage defects and rework caused by missed dependencies or rushed testing.
• Manage and monitor the programme test budget, providing guidance and decision‑making support to underlying projects.

Requirements

• Proven experience leading test delivery on complex programmes with multiple delivery streams and system integrations.
• Strong working knowledge of software testing lifecycle and environments, sufficient to challenge plans and assure quality.
• Demonstrated ability to manage inter-team and third-party dependencies in large organisations.
• Experience operating in regulated or risk-aware environments where quality and assurance are non-negotiable, ideally experience within financial services sector.
• Comfortable holding suppliers and senior stakeholders to account.
• In-depth knowledge and demonstrable application of different project and programme delivery methodologies including Scaled Agile Programmes.
• Excellent facilitation and presentation skills.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management and influencing skills demonstrating the ability to translate technical and complex challenges into simple, clear updates, issues and/or risks for senior stakeholders.
• An inspirational people-manager preferably skilled in both a line and matrix management environment.
• Qualifications include: Prince2, MSP, APM, Scrum Master, ITSQB Test Manager, Stakeholder Management and Risk Management.

Benefits

• Holiday: 182 hours (26 days)
• Quilter Incentive Scheme: All employees are eligible to participate in incentive scheme, to incentivise business performance and their contribution.
• Pension Scheme: A non-contributory company pension scheme that can be boosted through personal contributions.
• Healthcare Cash Plan: Jersey employees only.
• Benefit Allowance: A cash benefit allowance is payable in lieu of some of our core benefits.
• In addition to our core benefits, we offer a range of flexible benefits to UK employees that you can choose from and pay for conveniently via a salary deduction.