Freelance QA Tester

The role

We are looking for a proactive, detail-driven freelance QA Tester to support our digital development team on an ongoing basis. This is a fully remote role, suited to a self-employed professional who can work independently while collaborating closely with our internal team during the standard UK working hours.

This role is not just about finding bugs - it’s about advocating for quality, anticipating issues before they arise, improving processes, and helping ensure high-quality delivery across all web and mobile projects.

You will work closely with our developers, project managers, designers, and the QA Manager to validate functionality, challenge assumptions, improve requirements, and uphold quality standards across the full development lifecycle.

Reports to: QA Manager

Location: Remote

Type: Freelance contract (you will need to be set up as a self-employed contractor)

Start: ASAP

What you’ll be doing in this role

Quality Ownership

• Review requirements, designs, and user stories to pre‑empt gaps, risks, or inconsistencies.
• Provide early feedback to the QA Manager and project team to strengthen acceptance criteria and test coverage.
• Suggest improvements to QA processes, dev tests, and release readiness.
  
  

Test Planning & Execution

• Create, maintain, and execute test plans and test cases for both web and mobile (iOS/Android).
• Execute functional testing to verify that features behave according to requirements and user expectations, alongside regression, exploratory, usability, and compatibility testing.
• Conduct ongoing monitoring of environments to verify that releases deploy cleanly and behave as expected.
• Ensure adequate platform coverage using tools such as BrowserStack.
  
  

Defect Reporting & Collaboration

• Log defects in Jira with clear reproduction steps, severity, and supporting evidence (screenshots, recordings).

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• Work closely with developers to investigate issues, clarify expected behaviour, and ensure defects are prioritised and resolved effectively.
• Communicate risks early and proactively.
  
  

Agile Delivery Support

• Participate in sprint ceremonies, providing QA insight around complexity, risk, and testability.
• Help ensure that work delivered aligns fully with specification, design intent, and user experience expectations.
• Support the QA Manager in coordinating test activities across projects and deadlines.
  
  

What you’ll need to be successful in this role

• 2+ years’ hands‑on experience testing websites on web (various browsers) and mobile (Android/iOS).
• Experience writing test cases from ticket specifications, not just following predefined scripts.
• Strong understanding of browser/dev tools and responsive/adaptive behaviour.
• Experience using Jira and working in Agile (Scrum or Kanban) teams.
• Excellent communication skills, with a strong command of written and spoken English, with the confidence to challenge constructively.
• High attention to detail and strong critical‑thinking skills.
• Exposure to CMS platforms (Umbraco preferred).
• Experience with cross‑device/platform testing tools (e.g., BrowserStack).
• Understanding of good UX and user‑centric testing approaches.
  
  

What “Proactive” Means in This Role

We Expect Our Freelance Partner To

• Identify risks without being asked and raise them effectively.

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• Ask questions when requirements are unclear — instead of waiting until testing fails.
• Suggest improvements to processes, tooling, documentation, or acceptance criteria.
• Take ownership of their workload and manage testing timelines independently.
• Help reduce the QA Manager’s operational load by taking initiative on day‑to‑day QA activities.
  
  

It’s a bonus if you have

• HTML/CSS understanding
• Awareness of accessibility and performance best practices
• Exposure to AI tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot and Claude
• Commitment to continuous learning and technological innovation.
• Exposure to test automation is a bonus.
• Previous experience working within an agency environment in a similar QA or web/mobile testing capacity is preferred.
  
  

Next Steps

If you are successfully shortlisted for the role, the recruitment team will be in touch via email, and the process will begin from there. We endeavour to contact you within 5 working days of your application, however, this may vary depending on the volume of applications we receive. Good Luck!

As an employer, we are committed to ensuring the representation of people from all backgrounds regardless of their gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, race, religion, ethnicity, age, neurodiversity, disability status, or any other aspect which makes them unique. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds to apply and would encourage you to let us know if there are steps we can take to ensure that your recruitment process enables you to present yourself in a way that makes you comfortable.

Emperor is for your great ambitions. We're an employee-owned corporate communications and creative agency with 250 partners specialising in reporting, brand, digital, employee engagement, change and sustainability.

We want to be the agency of choice for ambitious talent. So, we’re looking for brilliant people who actively want to create great things with us.

Our culture is one where you’re free to do, learn and achieve better. We welcome every partner to experience a sense of belonging; whoever you are, wherever you’re working from, whatever your role. Our values guide how we work every day, with each other, our clients, and suppliers. And with our friendly inclusive environment, effort and empathy, we make the feeling real.

Our Pledges represent commitments from Emperor to each partner designed to promote personal and collective wellbeing, plus raise awareness of and address some of the bigger societal and environmental challenges, nurture our unique culture and make the business a healthier and more responsible place to work.

The wellbeing of our partners is a big focus at Emperor which why we have a dedicated Wellbeing and Pledges Manager to ensure our mind and bodies are working in sync to support our great ambitions.

Our employee-owned status helps us see working life differently, purposefully, and collectively. We’re fully committed to responsible business that leaves a positive footprint for our clients, our partners, communities, and society.