Workday Test Lead

An exciting opportunity has just arisen here at The Football Association for a talented Workday Test Lead to join us and take ownership of our testing strategy and delivery.

You'll play a key role in shaping the success of our Workday implementations and BAU changes, ensuring every process, integration and data migration is tested to the highest standard. Working across onshore, offshore and business teams, you'll bring structure, clarity and quality to every stage of delivery.

Although this role has no direct reports, you'll lead by influence, mentoring and supporting Test Analysts from our offshore partners and helping drive excellence across the wider QA function.

This role is a Fixed-Term Contract until March 2027, based at Wembley Stadium, with an expectation to be onsite two days per week. 

What you will be doing:

• Lead, define and own the overall test strategy, plan and approach for the Workday programme.
• Present and communicate the Workday testing approach to the Programme Board and Architecture & Change Board (ACB).
• Create and manage a robust testing process for BAU Workday changes, including major releases, monthly updates and third-party integrations.
• Deliver a fully tested end-to-end Workday solution that meets programme objectives and timelines.
• Lead and coordinate testing resources, representing the Testing Workstream at Programme Leadership meetings.
• Foster collaboration across teams to identify and resolve quality issues, dependencies and blockers early.
• Coordinate UAT cycles with business users, ensuring clear entry and exit criteria and timely sign-offs.
• Oversee third-party testing to ensure high-quality integrations and configurations.
• Drive test planning, estimation and risk assessment, and monitor execution and defect trends to protect release quality.
• Establish strong test governance, regular reporting, defect triage and escalation processes.
• Contribute to the design and execution of both automated and manual test cases, providing guidance and hands-on support.
• Maximise the use of test tools, CI/CD pipelines and test environments.
• Define and report on QA metrics, giving visibility of test coverage, release readiness and product quality.

What you'll bring:

• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
• Strong understanding of Workday modules and their interdependencies.
• Proven experience defining test strategies, plans and risk-based testing approaches.
• Hands-on experience testing integrations and data migrations in enterprise environments.
• Strong background in managing UAT cycles and test governance processes.
• Proven ability to coordinate testing across offshore, onshore and business teams.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Experience with API testing tools such as Postman.
• Proficiency with test management tools such as Jira, TestRail or Zephyr.
• Understanding of DevOps testing practices and CI/CD integration.

Desirable skills:

• Workday certifications (e.g. HCM, Payroll or Integration).
• Experience with automation tools such as Playwright (TypeScript/JavaScript) or Cypress.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms such as Azure DevOps or AWS.
• Knowledge of version control systems such as Git or GitHub.

What's in it for you?

We are committed to ensuring everyone can flourish in their roles, to achieve this we have unique office spaces under the arch of the iconic Wembley National Stadium, which is the home of English Football. We are also delighted to offer a world-class, Elite Performance Centre, St. George's Park in Staffordshire which is an exceptional setting to develop and inspire high-performing England teams and leaders.

We pride ourselves in offering a competitive salary as well as great opportunities to develop and grow in your role. But that is not all; we also have a range of exciting benefits, some of which can be found below:

• Access to event day tickets at Wembley Stadium, alongside a host of regular internal events throughout the season, encouraging you to connect and learn with your colleagues and look after your mental health and well-being.
• Free, nutritious lunches at Wembley Stadium and St. George's Park.
• Free private medical cover.
• A contributory pension scheme.
• An additional 'Thank You' days leave, volunteering days as well as 25 days annual leave (based on a full-time, permanent contract.)
• A hybrid working model which offers greater flexibility.

Currently, we are working within a hybrid working model whereby the expectation is to work from your contractual location for part of the week, and as and when required by the team. The remaining days can be worked remotely. We will continue to monitor this model, and it may be adjusted in future if deemed necessary. The contractual location of this role can be found on the FA Careers page.

We are a diverse workplace, aspiring to represent football across the country. The Football Association actively promotes inclusion and diversity, encouraging you to be the best version of yourself at work. 

We welcome applications from everyone and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. If you have any particular requirements in respect of the recruitment or interview process, please mention this during your application.

As part of the FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance