Remote Mainframe Migration Test Lead

Test Planning Lead
Mainframe Product Migration Programme

Location: Remote
Contract: 6 months initially , high potential for extension
Start Date: ASAP
Rate: £550-£627 per day
IR35: Inside IR35

About the Opportunity

We are currently recruiting for a Test Planning Lead to join a major mainframe product migration programme within a leading global financial services organisation.

This is a high-profile transformation programme involving complex legacy mainframe environments, critical banking applications and extensive integration across technology, operations, business and third-party teams.

The successful candidate will take ownership of end-to-end test planning and governance , ensuring the programme has a robust, risk-based and audit-ready testing approach across all phases of migration.

The Role

You will be responsible for defining the overall testing approach, building the integrated test plan and coordinating test readiness across multiple delivery teams, vendors and business stakeholders.

You will play a key role in ensuring testing is aligned with programme milestones, migration risks, release plans and cutover activities.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and maintain the overall Test Strategy and Master Test Plan , including test phases, entry/exit criteria, environments, test data, tooling, defect management and reporting.
• Build and manage an integrated test schedule aligned to programme milestones, releases and cutover.
• Lead risk-based test planning , covering scope, prioritisation, coverage and non-functional testing.
• Coordinate testing across SIT, System/Integration, Regression, UAT, Performance/Volume, Resilience/DR, Security and cutover rehearsals .
• Define and govern the test data strategy , including masked production-like data, synthetic data, refresh cycles and reconciliation requirements.
• Plan and coordinate test environment readiness , including mainframe regions/LPARs, middleware, interfaces, batch windows and stubs/simulators.
• Establish defect triage processes, severity models and quality gates.
• Produce clear test reporting covering progress, coverage, defects, risks, issues and go/no-go readiness .
• Drive stakeholder alignment across development, infrastructure, operations, business SMEs and third parties.
• Chair test planning, readiness and governance forums.
• Ensure appropriate test evidence, approvals and sign-offs are maintained for audit and compliance purposes.
• Support migration assurance activities including parallel runs, reconciliation testing, batch/control totals and post-migration verification .

Key Deliverables

You will be expected to produce and manage:

• Product Test Strategy & Master Test Plan
• Integrated test schedule and resourcing plan
• Test governance pack, including RAID, RACI and communications cadence
• Environment and test data readiness plans
• Phase-level test plans covering SIT, UAT, NFR and cutover rehearsals
• Test execution dashboards and go/no-go criteria
• Test closure report and evidence catalogue

Essential Experience

• Proven experience leading test planning for mainframe migration programmes .
• Strong experience across technologies such as z/OS, COBOL, CICS, DB2, IMS, MQ, batch and JCL .
• Strong understanding of batch cycles, end-of-day processing, data migration, data reconciliation and operational constraints .
• Demonstrable experience developing risk-based testing strategies and test governance at programme scale.
• Experience coordinating complex testing across multiple delivery teams, vendors and business stakeholders.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, including senior/executive-level reporting.
• Experience working within regulated or highly controlled environments is highly beneficial.

Tools & Methodologies

Experience with:

• JIRA
• Zephyr
• ServiceNow
• Confluence
• Excel
• Test management and defect management processes
• LRE, TDM and SV where relevant
• Test automation frameworks and performance tooling are advantageous but not mandatory.

Key Skills & Behaviours

• Highly structured and organised approach to test planning
• Pragmatic, delivery-focused mindset
• Strong dependency and risk management
• Excellent written and verbal communication
• Confident facilitator of senior stakeholder forums
• Comfortable managing multiple teams and competing prioritiesCalm and decisive during dress rehearsals, cutover and critical migration activities
• Strong attention to detail with an understanding of audit and governance requirements