Lead Test Engineer

We're looking for a Lead Test Engineer for our public sector client with locations across Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle on an initial 12-month contract, paying up to 640 per day (Inside IR35). This role requires 60% office attendance per week. The successful Lead Test Engineer will be a hands-on technical leader with a genuine automation-first mindset, comfortable both setting direction and rolling up their sleeves to deliver. You will define and embed a scalable test strategy across multiple delivery teams, supporting a major transition from monolithic systems to modern microservices architecture. You will need proven experience working with the following: Designing and implementing end-to-end test strategies for microservices environments Hands-on automation using Java, Selenium and Rest Assured across unit, integration, contract, system and end-to-end test levels API testing, contract testing and asynchronous messaging including Kafka CI/CD pipelines and Spring Boot-ba...