Operational Acceptance Test (OAT) Lead - 6 months - Inside IR35 - Hybrid in Reading

Summary: The Operational Acceptance Test (OAT) Lead will oversee the operational readiness of business-critical systems within a major transformation programme in the utilities sector. This senior role involves validating operational processes and ensuring production stability across a complex enterprise ecosystem. The OAT Lead will be responsible for defining testing strategies, managing defects, and supporting Go-Live decision-making. The position requires extensive experience in testing and quality engineering, particularly in operational acceptance testing.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define and own the end-to-end Operational Acceptance Testing (OAT) strategy
• Develop OAT plans, scope, timelines, entry/exit criteria, and governance framework
• Validate operational readiness across business processes, support models, monitoring, and system integrations
• Ensure production readiness for batch jobs, scheduling, logging, alerting, and business continuity
• Lead non-functional testing including stability, resilience, backup, recovery, and disaster recovery
• Coordinate production-like environment setup and test data readiness
• Manage OAT defects, risks, and issue resolution with cross-functional teams
• Validate support readiness across L1/L2/L3 teams including runbooks and SOPs
• Support Go-Live decision-making through readiness reporting and KPI tracking

Key Skills:

• 10+ years in Testing, Quality Engineering, or Service Readiness
• Strong hands-on experience in Operational Acceptance Testing (OAT)
• Experience delivering within large-scale transformation programmes
• Strong knowledge of integration testing, batch processing, and enterprise operational workflows
• Familiarity with ITIL processes (Incident, Problem, Change Management)
• Experience with JIRA and/or Azure DevOps
• Strong stakeholder management and vendor coordination skills
• Proven ability to manage risks, dependencies, and operational readiness

Salary (Rate): £500 per day

City: Reading

Country: UK

Working Arrangements: Hybrid

IR35 Status: Inside IR35

Seniority Level: Senior

Industry: IT

Operational Acceptance Test (OAT) Lead - 6 months - Inside IR35 - Hybrid in Reading

Overview of the Role

We are currently seeking an experienced Operational Acceptance Test (OAT) Lead to join a major transformation programme within the utilities sector. This is an excellent opportunity for a senior testing professional to lead operational readiness and ensure business-critical systems are prepared for production deployment.

This role will focus on validating operational processes, service readiness, non-functional assurance, and production stability across a complex enterprise ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define and own the end-to-end Operational Acceptance Testing (OAT) strategy
• Develop OAT plans, scope, timelines, entry/exit criteria, and governance framework
• Validate operational readiness across business processes, support models, monitoring, and system integrations
• Ensure production readiness for batch jobs, scheduling, logging, alerting, and business continuity
• Lead non-functional testing including stability, resilience, backup, recovery, and disaster recovery
• Coordinate production-like environment setup and test data readiness
• Manage OAT defects, risks, and issue resolution with cross-functional teams
• Validate support readiness across L1/L2/L3 teams including runbooks and SOPs
• Support Go-Live decision-making through readiness reporting and KPI tracking

Required Skills & Experience:

• 10+ years in Testing, Quality Engineering, or Service Readiness
• Strong hands-on experience in Operational Acceptance Testing (OAT)
• Experience delivering within large-scale transformation programmes
• Strong knowledge of integration testing, batch processing, and enterprise operational workflows
• Familiarity with ITIL processes (Incident, Problem, Change Management)
• Experience with JIRA and/or Azure DevOps
• Strong stakeholder management and vendor coordination skills
• Proven ability to manage risks, dependencies, and operational readiness