Lead Assurance Manager (Tech)
Digital Assurance & Productivity Division, Technology Directorate
Type: Permanent
Hours: Full time
Location: Leeds or London
Day in the Role
A typical day will start by attending Daily Stand‑Ups. The team will monitor environment availability morning reports and communicate outages to stakeholders. Throughout the day you will monitor and manage test environment management (TEM) bookings, facilitate contention management with relevant stakeholders, and own any TEM actions. You will also represent Release and TEM at relevant meetings throughout the week. You will produce metrics to help support our processes and analyse for trends. You will be asked to operate flexibly, and when required, work out‑of‑hours (including weekends).
Environment Strategy & Planning
* Work collaboratively with wider teams to develop, assess and maintain a strategic roadmap for Release and TEM across the development lifecycle considering enterprise system dependencies.
* Act as a representative for Release and TEM in emerging initiatives, ensuring release and environmental requirements are clearly considered and understood. Offer relevant insights and subject‑matter expertise.
* Coordinate environment refreshes, releases, and decommissioning activities in alignment with project/programme milestones and ensure they are documented.
* Liaise with architecture and infrastructure teams to ensure environments are correctly sized and configured.
Environment Provisioning & Facilitation
* Oversee environment setup.
* Manage environment bookings and scheduling to avoid contention and ensure optimal utilisation.
* Implement automation and tooling to streamline environment provisioning, monitoring and releasing.
Governance & Risk Management
* Maintain discipline and control across environments equivalent to live operations.
* Log and track environment issues as change defects to identify patterns and drive proactive remediation.
* Ensure compliance with risk frameworks and contribute to internal processes.
Stakeholder Engagement
* Serve as the central point of contact and representative for release and environment‑related queries.
* Collaborate with test leads, programme managers, business/technical stakeholders and third‑party vendors to align environment readiness with testing plans.
* Provide regular updates, metrics and reporting to governance forums and senior leadership.
Operational Support
* Support ongoing project and portfolio testing activities, including CUPE, SABR and SCOR.
* Manage environment incidents and coordinate recovery actions in line with RTGS incident management protocols.
People Management Responsibilities
You will be responsible for day‑to‑day management of the team, defining roles and responsibilities, and developing staff through coaching and clear vision. This includes setting goals, monitoring performance, handling absence and sickness, and engaging in people‑related matters.
Number of direct reports: 1‑3
Minimum Criteria
* Proven experience in test environment management within financial services or regulated environments.
* Strong understanding of bank systems, settlement processes and financial messaging.
* Familiarity with change, project, release and environment management tools such as Planview and Jira.
* Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
Essential Criteria
* Ability to manage competing priorities and deliver under pressure.
* Experience with agile methodology.
* Flexibility to meet demands of both BAU and project work (including out‑of‑hours).
* Leadership, management and mentoring skills.
Desirable Criteria
* ITIL or equivalent certification in service management.
* Experience with risk and control frameworks (e.g., RCSA, 3LOD).
* Technical background to understand complex platforms and products.
* Knowledge of the TMMi framework.
* Understanding of testing methodologies, automation and AI.
* Reporting tools such as Power BI and Tableau.
* Monitoring tools such as Splunk and SquaredUp.
* DevOps and CI/CD knowledge.
Our Approach to Inclusion
The Bank values diversity, equity and inclusion and strives to create an inclusive culture that reflects the society we serve. We welcome applications from people working flexibly, including job shares and part‑time patterns. We are proud participants of the Disability Confident Scheme.
Salary and Benefits
London salary: £71,680 – £80,640
Leeds salary: £64,480 – £72,540
Benefits include:
* Non‑contributory career average pension, with options to adjust accrual rates.
* Discretionary performance award based on current award pool.
* 8% benefits allowance, optionally payable as salary or used to purchase flexible benefits.
* 26 days annual leave, with option to buy up to 12 additional days.
* Private medical insurance and income protection.
National Security Vetting Process
Employment in this role is subject to National Security Vetting clearance, typically taking 6–12 weeks post‑offer, and additional Bank security checks in accordance with policy.
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