Head of Engineering Operations

Standard Life (previously Phoenix Group); Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private medical cover

38 days annual leave

Life assurance (12x salary)

Career breaks

Income protection

Volunteering days

Job summary

Standard Life invites applications for Head of Engineering Operations, leading the capability that underpins engineering quality, delivery assurance, environments, and release discipline across the Digital & Information Office.

This senior role shapes the operational backbone of engineering, driving automation, metrics and governance, while collaborating with partners to raise standards and deliver change safely and efficiently.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading engineering operations and delivery at scale.
• Strong risk, quality, and resilience mindset in regulated environments.
• Ability to balance pace with control and set standards.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve Engineering Operations across quality, environments, release readiness.
• Lead engineering risk management and attestation processes.
• Drive automation: standards compliance, test automation, DevSecOps.
• Provide leadership for QA, environment management, and release governance.
• Oversee standards across partners and outsourcing with metrics.
• Use metrics and data to drive continuous improvement.

Skills

Engineering operations leadership

DevSecOps

Test automation

Deployment automation

Engineering metrics

Developer tooling

Risk & governance

Stakeholder management

Regulated environment leadership

Job description

Job Description

Are you ready to lead the engineering operations capability that helps Standard Life deliver safely, predictably and at scale?

Job Type: Permanent

Location: Birmingham, London, Telford, Edinburgh (Hybrid working)

Flexible working: All roles are open to part-time, job-share and other types of flexibility. We will discuss what is important to you and balancing this with business requirements during the recruitment process. You can read more about flexible working here.

Closing Date: 02/10/26

Salary and benefits: from £90,000 (dependant upon experience)plus an indicative bonus range of 30–60%, private medical cover, 38 days annual leave, excellent pension, 12x salary life assurance, career breaks, income protection, 3x volunteering days and much more.

Who are we?

We’re Standard Life, a retirement specialist focused entirely on retirement savings and income. We champion the belief that everyone’s journey to and through retirement can be better, and for more than 200 years, we’ve been helping our customers plan and prepare for their financial futures.

Life today is increasingly complicated, uncertain and unpredictable. People move through different careers, face unexpected moments and navigate important choices. We offer our colleagues flexibility, trust and benefits that work for whatever life brings. In return we expect curiosity, connection, accountability and high standards. We make room for what matters - so you can bring your best, every day.

The role

As Head of Engineering Operations at Standard Life, you will lead the capability that underpins engineering quality, delivery assurance, environments, release discipline and operational resilience all underpinned with industry standard metrics across the Digital & Information Office. This is a senior, high-impact leadership role within Engineering & Delivery, working at the centre of our move to a more product-led, platform-based and customer-focused technology function.

You will shape and lead the operational backbone of engineering: owning, evolving and maintaining the Quality Framework; coordinating standards across Digital Information Office practices; and ensuring delivery teams comply with relevant standards, automating controls and quality gates wherever possible.

This is a role for someone who can combine engineering credibility with strong operational discipline. You will work across digital, data, cloud, systems integration, delivery, architecture, service, Enterprise Technology, Pensions & Savings risk and governance, security and strategic partners to raise standards, reduce delivery friction, improve resilience and ensure change is delivered with pace, quality and control.

You will also play a key role in modernising how engineering teams work, including the adoption of DevSecOps, test automation, engineering metrics, developer tooling, AI-enabled software delivery and consistent quality gates across internal teams, resource partners and outsource providers.

The right person will bring senior engineering operations leadership, practical delivery judgement and the ability to build trusted relationships across a complex regulated environment. They will be comfortable setting standards, challenging constructively and helping teams turn strategy into reliable, measurable delivery outcomes.

What you’ll be responsible for

• Own and evolve the Engineering Operations capability across quality engineering, environments, release readiness, engineering assurance, operational controls, engineering risk and continuous improvement.
• Lead engineering risk management, ensuring clear ownership of controls, regular attestation, evidence quality and effective alignment with both central Enterprise Technology and Pensions & Savings risk and governance frameworks.
• Lead the shift towards greater automation, including automated standards compliance, test automation, DevSecOps practices, infrastructure as code, developer tooling, deployment discipline and AI-enabled software delivery.
• Provide leadership for quality assurance, environment management and release governance, ensuring delivery teams can evidence standards compliance and deliver change safely, predictably and with appropriate control.
• Oversee engineering standards across resource partners and outsource providers, applying consistent outcome monitoring, quality indicators, delivery metrics and control expectations.
• Use engineering metrics, risk insights, control reporting and operational data to drive better decision-making, stronger accountability and continuous improvement across the function.

What are we looking for?

• Engineering operations leadership
• Proven experience leading engineering operations, quality engineering, release management, environments, software delivery governance or a related technology capability in a complex organisation.
• Quality, control, risk and resilience mindset
• Ability to balance pace with control by embedding standards, quality gates, engineering risk management, assurance and operational resilience.
• Modern engineering practices
• Practical knowledge of DevSecOps, test automation, deployment automation, engineering metrics, developer tooling and continuous improvement.
• Commercial, partner and outcome focus
• Ability to improve delivery effectiveness, set clear partner expectations and link engineering operations to customer value, cost, resilience and delivery confidence.
• Senior stakeholder influence
• Confident communicator who can simplify complexity, build alignment and champion engineering excellence with executives, governance forums, technology leaders, risk partners and suppliers.
• Collaborative leadership in a regulated environment
• Clear, high-standard leadership across teams, partners and suppliers, with sound judgement around conduct, security, data, resilience, controls and regulation.

We want to hire the whole version of you.

We are committed to ensuring that everyone feels accepted and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. If your experience looks different from what we’ve advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we’d love to hear from you.

If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best.

Find out more about working at Standard Life #LI-GJ1

• Guide for Candidates: standardlifeplc.pagetiger.com/guideforcandidates
• Find or get answers from our colleagues: www.standardlifeplc.com/careers/talk-to-us