QA Tester

About Methods

Methods is a £100M+ IT Services Consultancy who has partnered with a range of central government departments and agencies to transform the way the public sector operates in the UK. Established over 30 years ago and UK‑based, we apply our skills in transformation, delivery, and collaboration from across the Methods Group, to create end‑to‑end business and technical solutions that are people‑centred, safe, and designed for the future. Our human touch sets us apart from other consultancies, system integrators and software houses - with people, technology, and data at the heart of who we are, we believe in creating value and sustainability through everything we do for our clients, staff, communities, and the planet. We support our clients in the success of their projects while working collaboratively to share skill sets and solve problems. At Methods we have fun while working hard; we are not afraid of making mistakes and learning from them. Predominantly focused on the public‑sector, Methods is now building a significant private‑sector client portfolio. Methods was acquired by the Alten Group in early 2022. Alten is a global engineering firm with approximately 57,000 employees specialising in engineering and IT services.

Key Responsibilities

• Hands‑on Testing: Execute functional, regression, and exploratory testing across web and mobile applications.
• Automation: Build and maintain automated test scripts within existing frameworks to support CI/CD pipelines.
• Collaboration: Participate in Agile ceremonies (Stand ups, Sprint Planning, Refinement, Retrospectives) to provide test effort estimations, ensure requirements are testable and provide accurate reports of the testing activities.
• Defect Management: Identify, document, and track defects, working closely with developers to ensure timely progression and resolution.
• Technical Advocacy: Help the team maintain high standards for code quality and test coverage.
• Continuous Learning: Use your dedicated development time to explore new tools (e.g., Playwright, Cypress, K6) and share knowledge with the wider QA community.

Qualifications

• Technical Mindset: Proven experience in software testing with a strong understanding of the SDLC and Agile methodologies.
• Test Planning: Writing and maintaining test plans including product quality, risk coverage, quality gates and test completion.
• Test Design: Ability to write clear, concise test cases based on user stories and technical requirements.
• Cloud Platforms: Exposure to testing in cloud‑native environments (AWS, MS Azure, or GCP). Experience with integrating testing as part of CI/CD tooling in a DevSecOps environment.
• Automation Skills: Practical experience with automation tools (e.g., Selenium, Playwright, or Cypress) and an understanding of testing methodologies (Cucumber/Gherkin).
• Full testing lifecycle: Perform testing (unit, system integration, acceptance testing).
• API Testing: Experience testing RESTful APIs using tools like Postman.
• Modern Tooling: Familiarity with version control and source code hosting platforms (Git/GitHub) and how testing integrates into CI/CD pipelines.
• Aware of Application Lifecycle Management and IT Service Management using tools such as Splunk and ServiceNow.
• Analytics: Experience with analytics and interactive visualization tools such as Grafana or Kibana.
• Problem Solving: A natural curiosity and the ability to troubleshoot complex technical issues.
• Communication: Ability to explain technical bugs to non‑technical stakeholders clearly and effectively.

Desirable Requirements

• Accessibility: Experience with WCAG standards and accessibility testing tools (e.g., Axe, Wave).
• Performance & Security: Basic knowledge of performance testing (JMeter/K6/Gatling) or security principles (OWASP Top 10).
• Infrastructure: Understanding of containerisation (Docker) and how it affects the test environment.
• Public sector: Experience with testing Government citizen‑facing services.

Certifications

• ISTQB Software Testing Foundation or Advanced Certification.

By joining us you can expect:

• Autonomy to develop and grow your skills and experience.
• Be part of exciting project work that is making a difference in society.
• Strong, inspiring and thought‑provoking leadership.
• A supportive and collaborative environment.

As well as this, we offer:

• Development access to LinkedIn Learning, a management development programme and training.
• Wellness 24/7 Confidential employee assistance programme.
• Social – Breakfast Tuesdays, Thirsty Thursdays and Pizza on the last Thursday of each month as well as commitment to charitable causes.
• Time off 25 days a year.
• Pension Salary Exchange Scheme with 4% employer contribution and 5% employee contribution.
• Discretionary Company Bonus based on company and individual performance.
• Life Assurance of 4 times base salary.
• Private Medical Insurance which is non‑contributory (spouse and dependants included).
• Worldwide Travel Insurance which is non‑contributory (spouse and dependants included).