Head of Enterprise Transformation Office

Standard Life plc; City of Edinburgh; Hybrid; GBP 170,000 - 195,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus 40–80%

Private medical cover

38 days annual leave

Excellent pension

Life assurance 12x salary

Career breaks

Income protection

Volunteering days

Job summary

Standard Life plc in the United Kingdom is seeking a Director-level enterprise transformation leader to shape the change portfolio across the organisation. You will bring strategic thinking, governance rigor and delivery discipline to senior stakeholders.

This hybrid role offers flexibility on home office locations (Edinburgh, Birmingham or London). You’ll lead reporting to the Executive and Board, partner with senior leaders, and drive benefits realisation across large programmes.

Qualifications

• Experience leading enterprise transformation or portfolio delivery across a large organisation.
• Proven capability to challenge senior stakeholders with evidence-based insights.
• Ability to establish governance, reporting and assurance across programmes.

Responsibilities

• Own the enterprise-wide view of the change portfolio and delivery confidence.
• Lead reporting for Executive and Board-level audiences on benefits and risks.
• Establish standards, controls and management information for portfolio governance.

Skills

Portfolio leadership

Stakeholder management

Governance

Reporting to executives

Strategic thinking

Education

Relevant degree or equivalent

MoP

MSP

PRINCE2

APM/PMI

Job description

Job Description

Job Type

Permanent (Director)

Location

This is a hybrid role with flexibility on the home office (Edinburgh, Birmingham or London)

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

19th November 2026

Salary and benefits

£170,000 - £195,000 plus an indicative bonus range of 40% to 80%, 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.

This is your opportunity to shape how transformation is prioritised, governed and delivered across our organisation. In this pivotal enterprise-wide role, you’ll bring clarity to our change portfolio, strengthen governance and assurance, and ensure our investment, resources and change capability support our strategic ambitions.

Working closely with senior leaders, you’ll provide the insight and constructive challenge needed to turn priorities into delivery. From investment planning through to execution and benefits realisation, you’ll help ensure our transformation delivers meaningful, sustainable value.

The role

• Own the enterprise-wide view of the change portfolio, bringing together strategic outcomes, milestones, dependencies, risks, resource constraints and overall delivery confidence.
• Lead clear, high-quality reporting for Executive and Board-level audiences, covering benefits, delivery risk, costs, resource capacity and emerging themes.
• Establish and continuously improve the frameworks, standards, controls, tools and management information that underpin effective portfolio and change management.
• Ensure our portfolio management tools and data provide consistent, transparent and evidence-based oversight of enterprise change.
• Lead assurance activity for priority programmes, particularly during mobilisation or periods of heightened delivery risk, and support effective remediation.
• Support the Annual Operating Plan and project approval lifecycle, ensuring benefits, dependencies, delivery constraints, non-financial outcomes and capacity requirements are clearly understood.
• Track strategic outcomes from initial ideas through to delivery and benefits realisation.
• Coordinate across portfolios to resolve material dependencies, resource conflicts, sequencing challenges and enterprise-wide delivery trade-offs.
• Lead forward-looking supply-and-demand planning for change capability, including skills, capacity, sourcing and strategic recruitment requirements.
• Strengthen accountability for portfolio decisions, ensuring risks, actions and decisions are escalated and resolved at the appropriate level.
• Build a strong enterprise change community that promotes consistent ways of working, shares insight and develops organisational capability.

What are we looking for?

You will be an experienced enterprise transformation or portfolio leader who can operate confidently across a large, complex organisation. You will combine strategic thinking with strong delivery judgement and be comfortable influencing and constructively challenging senior stakeholders.

• A collaborative and credible leader who can balance pace, control and strategic ambition.
• A Leader who is comfortable working with ambiguity and making pragmatic recommendations where information may be incomplete
• An enterprise-wide perspective, sound judgement and the confidence to challenge constructively.
• Someone who can help create a culture of accountability, inclusion, collaboration and continuous improvement, ensuring transformation decisions are supported by robust evidence and a clear understanding of the wider organisational impact.
• A relevant degree or equivalent senior-level professional experience is required.
• A recognised portfolio, programme, project or change qualification, such as MoP, MSP, PRINCE2, APM or PMI, would be advantageous.
• A relevant leadership, finance, risk or transformation qualification would also be beneficial.

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

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