Senior Specialist - Quality Assurance (Night shift)
About this opportunity
Job Title: Senior Specialist – Quality Assurance
Night Shift (4 on, 4 off)
Location: Macclesfield
Competitive salary and benefits
Introduction to role:
Are you ready to make a significant impact in the world of aseptic manufacturing and packing? The Senior Specialist – Quality Assurance is accountable for delivering QA leadership and oversight for aseptic manufacturing and packaging operations on the night shift. You will provide GMP and aseptic processing expertise, assure cleanroom compliance, influence operational decisions within the Process Execution Team (PET), and support timely and compliant product release. This role is pivotal in safeguarding patient safety, regulatory compliance, and value stream performance.
Accountabilities:
Cleanroom and Aseptic Oversight: Provide technical guidance on cleanroom standards, aseptic techniques, and environmental controls aligned to current EU GMP Annex 1 and internal procedures.
Deviation and CAPA Management: Advise on deviations, lead or contribute to root cause analysis, and agree CAPAs to prevent recurrence and improve process robustness.
Product Quality/Release Support: Support or perform product release activities as required, ensuring batch documentation, data integrity, and compliance.
GMP Training and Coaching: Complete required PET GMP training and coach manufacturing personnel on cGMP, aseptic behaviours, data integrity, and contamination control.
Compliance and Continuous Improvement: Proactively identify compliance risks and opportunities for business improvement, efficiency savings, and lean optimization.
Change Control: Lead or support local/cross-functional change controls ensuring validated state and regulatory alignment.
Quality Systems Execution: Contribute to PQR, quality risk management, metrics (e.g., deviations, CAPA effectiveness), and documentation updates.
Essential Skills/Experience:
Degree (or equivalent) in a scientific discipline (e.g., pharmacy, microbiology, chemistry, biochemistry, engineering). A clear, comprehensive grasp of the quality assurance function, along with a strong understanding of other business functions and how they work together to achieve business objectives in a lean manufacturing environment.
Quality Assurance in Pharmaceutical Manufacture with strong understanding of cross-functional operations in a lean environment.
Aseptic Processing or Packing knowledge, including cleanroom behaviours and contamination control principles.
Current GMP Knowledge and working familiarity with EU GMP Annex 1, ICH Q9/Q10, and data integrity principles.
Communication and Influencing skills with cultural awareness; ability to coach operators and technicians.
Decision-Making within general operating guidelines using risk-based, science-led judgment.
Permanent Night Shift availability.
Desirable Skills/Experience:
Experience in Aseptic Manufacturing operations and sterile packaging lines.
Microbiology Experience, including environmental monitoring, sterility assurance concepts, and interpretation of microbiological data.
Quality Risk Management application (FMEA, HACCP).
At AstraZeneca, we are committed to quality that goes beyond compliance, driven by a proactive, science-based approach that prioritizes patient safety and product excellence. We foster an inclusive community where collaboration is key, allowing us to innovate and adapt swiftly. With a focus on growth and innovation, you'll find endless opportunities to develop your expertise and contribute to groundbreaking advancements in healthcare!
Ready to take on this exciting challenge? Apply now and be part of a team that makes a real difference!
We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.
Date Posted
29-Jul-2026
Closing Date
12-Aug-2026
Our mission is to build an inclusive and equitable environment. We want people to feel they belong at AstraZeneca and Alexion, starting with our recruitment process. We welcome and consider applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of characteristics. We offer reasonable adjustments/accommodations to help all candidates to perform at their best. If you have a need for any adjustments/accommodations, please complete the section in the application form.
Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active Quality role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 136 comparable Senior Quality roles across 36 biopharma companies.
Salary context
34 of 136 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)
Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.
Where these roles are based
Top locations among the 136 comparable roles
+ 15 more countries
Seniority mix
136 of 136 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
0 of 136 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden
No peers with a known therapeutic area yet.
Similar opportunities
The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.
How we calculate "similar"
No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.
Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.
0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.