Head of Data Quality & Establishment Control

King's College Hospital; Greater London; Remote; GBP 7,500 - 86,000; Full time

Job summary

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust seeks a strategic leader for Data Quality & Establishment Control to oversee ESR governance and workforce systems. You will shape policy, drive data quality improvements and ensure integration with payroll, recruitment and finance across the Trust.

The role requires extensive senior experience in HR systems, project delivery and collaboration with multiple directorates to support financial and workforce reporting excellence.

Qualifications

• Educated to degree level or equivalent knowledge and experience relevant to workforce systems, HR technology or informatics.
• Chartered Member of the CIPD (or willingness to gain this within 12 months).
• Masters level qualification or equivalent knowledge and experience.

Responsibilities

• Be the senior Trust lead for ESR, ensuring governance, optimisation and strategic use of the system across the organisation.
• Provide expert leadership on ESR functionality and its relationship with workforce, payroll, recruitment, learning and other systems.
• Ensure ESR releases, upgrades, testing and implementation are managed with risk and dependency controls.
• Develop and maintain a Trust-wide Establishment Control framework and policy across ESR.
• Work with Finance, Recruitment, Payroll and HR colleagues to reflect funded establishments within ESR.

Skills

Leadership

Project management

ESR knowledge

Data quality improvement

Stakeholder engagement

Education

Degree level or equivalent

CIPD Chartered member

Masters level qualification

Tools

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Excel

PowerPoint

Relational databases

Job description

Head of Data Quality & Establishment Control

NHS AfC: Band 8b

Main area Workforce Systems Grade NHS AfC: Band 8b Contract Permanent Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week Job ref 213-CORP-8285240-A

Employer King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Jennie Lee House Town Denmark Hill Salary £75,328 - £86,114 per annum, including high cost allowance Salary period Yearly Closing 21/10/2026 23:59

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is one of the UK’s largest and busiest teaching Trusts with a turnover of c£2.1 billion, 1.5 million patient contacts a year and more than 14,000 staff based across 5 main sites in South East London. The Trust provides a full range of local hospital services across its different sites, and specialist services from King’s College Hospital (KCH) sites at Denmark Hill in Camberwell and at the Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH) site in the London Borough of Bromley.

We encourage all our staff to have a healthy work/life balance. In doing so, you can apply for flexible working from the beginning of your employment. We offer a range of options which are designed to suit different circumstances and priorities in line with service requirements.

The Head of Data Quality & Establishment Control is the Trust’s senior strategic lead for the Electronic Staff Record (ESR), People systems, workforce establishment control, ESR workstructures and workforce systems data quality. The postholder will provide strategic leadership, governance and assurance for the Trust’s workforce systems architecture, ensuring that ESR and associated People systems provide a secure, reliable and authoritative source of workforce and establishment information. Working at corporate level across the People Directorate, Finance, Payroll, Recruitment, Digital, Business Intelligence and operational services, the postholder will lead the development and operation of an effective Trust-wide Establishment Control framework. This will ensure that funded workforce establishments held within financial systems are appropriately aligned to positions and whole-time equivalent establishment held within ESR, enabling reliable vacancy, workforce and financial reporting and supporting the Trust’s financial sustainability.

Main duties of the job

The postholder will have strategic responsibility for the design and governance of the Trust’s ESR organisational structures and hierarchies, ensuring that workstructures support effective workforce management, financial reporting, recruitment, payroll, workforce planning, management information, self-service and downstream workforce systems.

They will establish and lead a Trust-wide workforce systems data quality and assurance framework, setting standards, controls, measures and improvement priorities to maximise confidence in workforce information and ensure compliance with national workforce data standards.

A key requirement of the role will be preparing the Trust for national developments in workforce technology, including the transition from ESR to the NHS PeoplePortal / Future NHS Workforce Solution, ensuring that King’s is appropriately prepared in respect of data, processes, workstructures, integration, governance and organisational change.

The post holder will also deputise for the Head of People Systems, Data and Payroll

Working for our organisation

The Trust provides a full range of local and specialist services across its five sites. In June 2026, we launched our new strategy for 2026-31. Our vision is to transform healthcare, and we have agreed six strategic ambitions to help us improve care for patients, and the working lives of our staff.

Our six strategic ambitions are deliveringhigh-quality patient care; creating a great place to work; leading pioneering research, innovation and education; building strong and successful partnerships; providing timely and efficient care; and ensuring long-term financial sustainability.

We have also agreed four new organisational values – Caring, Collaborative, Inclusive, Innovative – and these underpin everything we do, and how our teams interact with the patients under our care.

We are at a pivotal point in our history and we require individuals who are ready to join a highly professional team and make a real, lasting difference to our patients and our people.

King’s is committed to delivering Sustainable Healthcare for All via our Green Plan. In line with national Greener NHS ambitions, we have set net zero carbon targets of 2040 for our NHS Carbon Footprint and 2045 for our NHS Carbon Footprint Plus. Everyone’s contribution is required in order to meet the goals set out in our Green Plan and we encourage all staff to work responsibly, minimising their contributions to the Trust’s carbon emissions, waste and pollution wherever possible.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Be the senior Trust lead for ESR, ensuring effective governance, optimisation and strategic use of the system across the organisation.
• Provide expert leadership on ESR functionality and its relationship with workforce, payroll, recruitment, learning, rostering, finance and other corporate systems.
• Ensure appropriate arrangements are in place for the management of ESR releases, upgrades, elective changes, testing and implementation, with risks and dependencies clearly understood and managed.
• Ensure that significant system configuration changes are subject to appropriate impact assessment, testing, approval, documentation and change control.
• Provide strategic leadership and corporate ownership of the Trust’s Establishment Control framework, ensuring robust integration between workforce and financial controls.
• Develop and maintain a clear Trust-wide Establishment Control policy and associated processes, setting out responsibilities, approval routes, controls, service standards and escalation arrangements.
• Work in close partnership with senior Finance, Recruitment, Payroll, Workforce and operationalcolleagues to ensure that funded workforce establishments are accurately reflected within ESR.
• Provide strategic oversight and governance of ESR workstructures and organisational hierarchies across the Trust.
• Ensure organisational structures within ESR are designed and maintained in a way that supports accurate workforce and financial reporting and aligns, wherever appropriate, with the Trust’s organisational and financial structures.
• Establish Trust-wide standards for the creation and maintenance of organisations, positions, jobs, grades, locations, cost centre mappings and associated structural information within ESR.

Person specification

Education and Qualifications

• Educated to degree level or equivalent level of knowledge and experience relevant to workforce systems, workforce information, HR technology, informatics or a related field
• Chartered Member of the CIPD (or willingness to gain this registration within 12 months of appointment)
• Masters level qualification or equivalent knowledge and experience

Knowledge and Experience

• Substantial senior experience of leading workforce, People or HR systems within a large and complex organisation
• Significant Project Management experience with a track record of bring innovations to operational reality
• Highly developed specialist knowledge of the Electronic Staff Record (ESR), including its role within core NHS workforce processes
• Experience of identifying and resolving significant ESR/workforce data-quality issues through structured improvement programmes
• Strong understanding of the relationship between ESR, Finance, Payroll, Recruitment, Rostering and other workforce systems
• Experience of working with NHSBSA ESR teams, ESR regional networks or ESR Special Interest Groups

Skills and Competencies

• Ability to understand, manipulate and analyse electronic HR data and present appropriately.
• Proficient in the use of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and familiar with the concepts of relational databases.
• Experience of communicating with a wide range of people on complex issues and/or in complex situations.

IMPORTANT

• Check your email account regularly as this is how we will communicate with you
• If you delete the job from any of your accounts, you may be prevented from accessing further communications
• To enquire about your application or inform us of any changes in your circumstances, please contact the named person on this advert
• Please provide email addresses for referees where possible
• Please review the documentation on our recruitment microsite, particularly the Trust’s criminal records checking policy
• All staff have a responsibility for safeguarding children and vulnerable adults and for ensuring they are aware of the specific duties relating to their role.
• Please note that the closing date is given as a guide. On occasion, we might close a vacancy early due to a high number of applications being received. You are advised to submit your application as early as possible to avoid disappointment.

AI tools like chatbots and virtual assistants can support you as you complete your application. For example, they can check for spelling or grammar errors, or help you to decide what to include. They shouldn’t however replace your own responses or be used to write the application for you.

Relying too much on AI can negatively impact your chances of success because automatically generated answers:

• might not be specific or relevant enough to address the criteria in the recruitment profile
• often seem generic and not personalised enough – an AI response won’t show your unique voice and perspective
• could misrepresent information about you, such as your qualifications, skills and experience

We monitor applications for any behaviour that could create an unfair advantage, and we check all references carefully. You are likely to be tested on your experience at interview, so be honest and make sure all the information in your application is correct.

King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Annual Reports and Other Corporate Publications King's Health Partners Academic Health Science Centre Website King's College Hospital is part of King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC), a pioneering collaboration between King's College London, and Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Name Marc Cottee Job title Head of People Systems, Data and Payroll Email address [e-mail] Telephone number 07896783146