Fractional Head of Testing
for Engineering Teams
Senior QA consultant for teams that need to move fast without breaking trust. Fixed-price reviews and embedded retainers. No surprises.
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PrsnQA is a UK QA consulting practice offering fractional Head of Testing retainers (from £2,500/month) and fixed-price reviews (from £1,200) for growing engineering teams. Founded by Stuart Coulson — 20+ years of QA leadership across Lloyd's Market insurers including Munich Re, Allianz Global, and Convex — PrsnQA delivers senior quality leadership without the overhead of a full-time hire.
accelerates.
judgment.
to ship.
QA leadership,
at every scale.
From a one-off review to an embedded fractional role — we meet you where you are and build from there.
Fractional Head
of Testing
Senior QA leadership embedded in your business on a part-time retainer. Strategic oversight, process ownership, and an expert voice in product planning — without the full-time cost.
- Test strategy ownership
- Team mentoring & capability building
- Tooling selection & governance
- QA representation in PI planning
- Monthly quality reporting
- Release confidence sign-off
QA Foundations
Programme
A structured 4–8 week engagement that builds a testing practice from scratch — processes, tooling, and a regression suite your team can own.
- Test strategy document
- Initial regression suite
- CI pipeline integration
- Bug triage process setup
AI-Assisted Testing
Implementation
Configure AI-powered testing tools (Playwright, Mabl, Applitools) for your stack — setup, prompt engineering, and team training included.
- Tool selection & procurement
- Full implementation
- Team training sessions
- 30-day check-in
AI Implementation
Consulting
Identify, prioritise, and implement AI opportunities across your business — from document automation to workflow agents — with a clear ROI lens.
- Discovery workshop
- Use-case roadmap
- Hands-on implementation
- Team enablement
QA Health Check
A 1–2 week independent review of your test coverage, tooling, and processes. Delivered as a scored report with a prioritised action plan. The natural entry point — no prior commitment needed.
- Coverage gap analysis
- Tooling assessment
- Risk scoring
- Prioritised recommendations
Test Automation
Build & Handoff
We build your automation suite (web, mobile, or API), integrate it into CI, document it thoroughly, and hand it over — ready for your team to maintain.
- Playwright / Cypress / Appium
- API testing (Postman / REST Assured)
- GitHub Actions integration
- Full documentation & handoff
Training & Upskilling
Workshops
Half or full-day workshops for development teams on testing fundamentals, shift-left practices, and AI-assisted QA — delivered remotely or on-site.
- Testing fundamentals
- Shift-left & testable code
- AI QA tools in practice
- Custom curriculum available
Test Strategy
Development
A standalone strategy engagement for teams who need the thinking without the build. We define what gets tested, how deeply, and why — mapped to your actual risk profile and release cadence, not generic coverage targets. This is perfect for product teams.
- Risk-based test approach
- Tooling & architecture review
- Quality metrics framework
- Stakeholder workshop & rollout plan
Comprehensive
QA Review
A tiered, structured maturity assessment across up to fourteen QA domains — scored against a five-point model and calibrated to your team size, structure, and regulatory exposure. For multi-team, multi-product, or regulated organisations.
- Domain-by-domain maturity scorecard
- Risk register & prioritised roadmap
- Tiered to scale: 1–4 weeks
- Regulatory & supplier domains where relevant
Most companies are stuck
between three options.
Cheap offshore test factories that, lets face it, throw bodies at test cases and add little judgment or pragmatism. Big-4 consultancies that sell frameworks and slideware but stay detached from the actual codebase. Or contract resource that are expensive and underwhelm. Neither tells you the truth about your quality risk.
Free 30-min call
You talk, I listen. No sales deck, no pitch. Just an honest conversation about your team, stack, and the quality risks you're likely to be carrying.
Review or proposal
A standalone QA Review as the entry point, or a precisely scoped document for the engagement that fits your situation and stage.
Work begins
Embedded in your team, async or on-site. We own quality outcomes — not just tasks. Fixed scope, no runaway costs.
Confident releases
Monthly quality reports, release sign-offs, and a team that ships with measurably more confidence at every deployment.
Fewer surprises.
More confidence.
The teams we work with don't just ship more — they ship with more confidence. Here's what that looks like in practice.
Deployments become a scheduled event, not a crisis. Bugs are caught in the pipeline — not discovered by customers on a Monday morning.
Developers write tests. Testers catch what matters. Everyone understands the risk profile of each release. Quality is built in, not bolted on.
Not a test suite nobody maintains. A lean, fast, CI-integrated suite that fails for real reasons — giving the team genuine signal, not noise.
What does a fractional Head of Testing do?
A fractional Head of Testing is a senior QA professional who works as a part-time embedded member of your engineering team — owning the quality function the way a full-time Head of Testing would, but on a monthly retainer rather than a salary. That means test strategy, tooling decisions, release governance, team mentoring, and an expert voice in planning. The difference from a contractor: accountability. A fractional HoT owns outcomes, not just deliverables. At PrsnQA, engagements run on 30-day rolling contracts from £2,500/month.
See the Fractional HoT service → Fractional vs full-time: cost comparison →