Head of DevOps and Platform Automation

VIQU IT; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 100,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

VIQU IT is seeking a Head of DevOps and Platform Automation in London to lead a critical DevOps and tooling function across multi-tenant cloud platforms. You will drive DevOps maturity, CI/CD excellence and an automation strategy while guiding geographically dispersed teams to deliver robust operations and governance.

The role demands strategic leadership, vendor management, and FinOps discipline to optimise platform spend and ensure regulatory compliance in a complex enterprise environment.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in DevOps, infrastructure, or tooling leadership roles.
• Experience leading enterprise-scale DevOps or SRE teams in global or regulated environments.
• Strong vendor management and budget handling; FinOps experience.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the DevOps, CI/CD and automation strategy and roadmap.
• Lead distributed DevOps and tooling teams across UK and offshore locations.
• Oversee platform lifecycle management ensuring availability, resilience, security and compliance.
• Drive standardisation and optimisation of CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices.
• Manage BAU performance, incident escalation and service reliability for critical platforms.
• Oversee delivery of DevOps and tooling in major transformation programmes.
• Act as key stakeholder interface across IT, business and architecture to align tooling with objectives.
• Manage third-party vendors and SLA performance.
• Own budget management and FinOps activity.

Skills

DevOps Leadership

CI/CD Pipelines

Cloud Platform Engineering

Stakeholder Management

FinOps & Cost Control

Tools

Jenkins

GitLab CI

Terraform

Azure

Job description

Head of DevOps and Platform Automation

London Hybrid

£100,000 £120,000 + Bonus

VIQU are partnering with a leading financial services organisation undergoing a major transformation across its cloud and infrastructure landscape. They are seeking a Head of DevOps and Platform Automation to take ownership of a critical DevOps and tooling function that underpins the delivery of strategic change across a complex, enterprise-scale environment. This is a high-impact leadership role, responsible for driving DevOps maturity, CI/CD excellence, and automation strategy across multi-tenant cloud platforms, while leading geographically dispersed teams and ensuring robust operational performance, governance, and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities of the Head of DevOps and Platform Automation:

• Own and evolve the DevOps, CI/CD and automation strategy and roadmap across tooling and platform services
• Lead and develop a distributed DevOps and tooling team across UK and offshore locations, driving a culture of continuous improvement and engineering excellence
• Oversee end-to-end platform lifecycle management ensuring availability, resilience, security and compliance across all tooling environments
• Drive standardisation and optimisation of CI/CD pipelines, automation frameworks and DevOps practices across the organisation
• Manage BAU performance, incident escalation and service reliability for critical DevOps platforms, including P1 management and stakeholder communications
• Oversee delivery of DevOps and tooling elements within major transformation programmes and cloud initiatives
• Act as a key stakeholder interface across IT, business and architecture teams to align tooling capability with strategic objectives
• Manage third-party vendors and suppliers, ensuring SLA adherence, performance optimisation and cost effectiveness
• Own budget management, resource planning and FinOps activity to ensure efficient platform and supplier spend
• Ensure compliance with governance, security and regulatory standards across all DevOps and tooling operations
• Champion automation, innovation and continuous improvement, including adoption of modern cloud and emerging technologies

Key Experience Required of the Head of DevOps and Platform Automation:

• Extensive experience (10+ years) within DevOps, infrastructure, platform engineering or tooling/automation leadership roles
• Strong background leading enterprise-scale DevOps or SRE teams within complex, global or regulated environments
• Deep expertise in CI/CD tooling such as Jenkins, GitLab CI and strong understanding of Infrastructure as Code (Terraform or similar)
• Strong experience working within Microsoft Azure cloud environments, ideally across hybrid or multi-cloud estates
• Proven track record of leading cloud-native engineering teams and driving DevOps maturity at scale
• Excellent stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence senior technical and business stakeholders
• Strong vendor and supplier management experience, including SLA governance and performance management
• Experience managing operational budgets and driving cost optimisation, including FinOps practices
• Strong understanding of ITIL, service management, governance and secure cloud operating models
• Demonstrable experience working in matrix organisations and leading virtual, geographically dispersed teams
• Strong communication, leadership and decision-making skills in fast-paced, ambiguous environments
• Relevant cloud, DevOps or ITIL certifications highly desirable