Head of DXP Operations
Location: Hybrid
Salary: £51,000 to £69,500 DOE
Our Client
They are the UK digital, data and technology agency focused on tertiary education, research, and innovation. They are a not-for-profit organisation with a big ambition to improve lives through education and research by providing hardware, software, and networking solutions. Their talented people bring their own unique skills and experience to empower their members and customers with the technology they need to succeed. Take your next career step with them and you can make a real difference to the education and research sectors.
They're at the cutting edge of technology, driving innovation to meet the evolving needs of their members. As part of the Group CTO directorate, you'll be at the heart of developing ground breaking products and providing technology leadership both within their organisation and to their members and customers.
The Role
Are you ready to lead and innovate? Our client is looking for a dynamic leader to oversee all operational and strategic activities for their Digital Experience Platform (DXP) and its team. This is your chance to make a significant impact by delivering reliable, scalable, and secure ITIL v4 services that prioritize a customer-first experience and meet our organizational goals.
What You'll Do
- Lead with Vision: Define, create, and improve services that align with Jisc's business strategy and target architecture.
- Drive Innovation: Foster continuous improvement in customer experiences by collaborating with cross-functional teams and architects to seamlessly integrate digital solutions.
- Own the Service: Take charge of the DXP Platform, ensuring strategic direction and priorities are executed effectively.
- Manage Excellence: Oversee schedules, dependencies, and quality standards, maintaining performance within agreed OLA/SLAs.
- Ensure Efficiency: Exercise strong cost control, risk management, and compliance to optimize operations.
Responsibilities will include
- Commercial Management: Negotiate and manage the technical estate, ensuring value. Develop partnerships to maintain service stability and quality. Ensure compliance with procurement and licensing governance.
- Resource Management: Lead and develop the technical team, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation. Manage resources and capacity planning for support, operations, and projects. Balance in-house skill retention and third-party expertise.
- Budget Management: Deliver value within the agreed budget, applying controls and governance. Optimize expenditure and ensure fiscal awareness within the team.
- Platform Strategy and Roadmap: Define and execute the platform's vision and strategic direction, aligning with their goals and architecture. Drive innovation and transformation through technology.
- Stakeholder Management: Engage stakeholders, manage expectations, and resolve conflicts. Lead steering groups to align strategy and priorities.
- Policies and Standards: Develop and maintain internal standards, policies, and procedures. Support ITIL, Agile, and DevOps frameworks.
- Incident Management: Act as Major Incident Manager for significant service outages.
- Advocacy: Provide technical expertise on project boards to guide the technical direction.
- Identify Opportunities: Leverage the IT assets for strategic decision-making and improve platform efficiency through process reviews and automation.
Key Skills and Experience
- Leadership Experience: Proven leadership in digital platform management, ideally in education or tech sectors.
- Digital Transformation: Successful track record in managing large-scale digital transformation programs from start to finish.
- Cloud Expertise: Skilled in managing cloud-based development and production of platforms, and leading strategic delivery.
- Team Development: Experience in motivating and developing teams to deliver projects, technical support, and new functionalities.
- Project Management: Expertise in leading technical support and development teams, managing projects, and developing senior-level communications.
- Budget Management: Proven ability to manage significant budgets (six figures+).
- Communication Skills: Strong organizational, communication, and negotiation skills, with the ability to engage with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Professional Development: Commitment to ongoing professional development.
- Salesforce Certification: Salesforce certification and relevant Trailhead badges.
What We Offer
- Dynamic Work Environment: Join a forward-thinking organization that values creativity and innovation.
- Professional Growth: Opportunities for continuous learning and development.
- Impactful Work: Contribute to projects that make a real difference to our members and customers.
Benefits
- Flexible work pattern, which can adapt to suit your schedules and personal commitments
- 31 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) that includes an additional three closure days over Christmas plus the opportunity to buy up to an additional 5 days
- Generous flexible pension schemes
- Protection benefit – life cover
- Annual company performance award
- A range of wellbeing lifestyle benefits including company paid health care cash plan, employee assistance programme, mental health first aiders and support
- A generous budget to support you with external learning and continuous professional development
- Allocated allowance of up to £250 to equip your home office
- Financial well-being support including access to preferential loan and savings plans, mortgage advice, will writing tools and support and resources to help you make the most of your money
- The opportunity to donate to charity tax-free with our Payroll Giving benefit
- Electric Car Lease Scheme and option to purchase SmartTech – spreading the cost of your everyday white goods and technology
- A wide range of discounts from retailers and big-name high-street stores and CSSC membership
- Family friendly policies including enhanced parental, maternity and paternity leave and opportunity for career breaks
- Support your volunteering with up to 3 days volunteer leave
- Cycle to work scheme and eye care scheme including free eye test vouchers and £70 towards new glasses for VDU use
- Free flu vaccinations
- Employee recognition awards and travel loans
- A company culture which supports and promotes personal learning and development, including access to thousands of courses on LinkedIn Learning
