Head of ICT Function (Infrastructure Operations)

NHS England; Exeter, Leeds; On-site; GBP 96,000 - 112,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent healthcare organization is seeking a Head of ICT Function to lead cloud engineering efforts and implement effective cloud strategies. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in public cloud platforms like Azure and AWS, and strong leadership capabilities. This role offers a competitive salary ranging from £96,822.52 to £111,657.22 annually.

Qualifications

• Experience leading and building an engineering team within an Agile environment.
• Deep understanding of industry-wide cloud technology strategies and best practices.
• Hands-on experience in building distributed, service-oriented, cloud-based architectures.

Responsibilities

• Define and implement technical landing zones and guardrails for cloud services.
• Lead the engineering team, expanding resources, talent, and service capabilities.
• Drive adherence to the Cloud First policy set by the government.

Skills

Leadership in Agile environments

Cloud technology strategies

Building cloud architectures

Container platforms

Public cloud platforms experience

Education

Masters or equivalent in Computer Science or related field

Job description

Head of ICT Function (Infrastructure Operations)

The purpose of Infrastructure services is to ensure our services and systems are hosted effectively, securely and efficiently.

The function of Infrastructure services brings all network and hosting infrastructure into a single team which will provide a multi-skilled 24/7 Infra Operations team organised by function and focussed on supporting continual improvement.

The teams are divided into fourcore areas providing technical and service management expertise:

• hosting
• cloud centre of excellence
• connectivity

Services are delivered to internal customers and NHS organisations.

The Cloud Centre of Excellence (CCoE) team at NHS England enables the NHS to make the best use of cloud technologies in pursuit of our collective objectives for improving the provision of health and care systems.

NHS England is driving an innovative Cloud First strategy that works to optimise the strategic digital hosting environment, reduce complexity, and implement high degrees of automation to enable more agile application delivery across its organisation and the wider NHS.

Main duties of the job

The Head of Cloud Technology role reports to the Head of Cloud COE and leads the cloud engineering pillar within the team, responsible for defining and implementing technical landing zones, guardrails and optimised environments to the internal and external organisations. This is a senior management role which will lead and expand the current functions resources, talent and service capabilities.

This role is instrumental in helping the NHS deliver on the governments Cloud First policy, bringing expertise in the strategy, design, orchestration, development, and implementation of large-scale projects in the cloud. The ideal candidate is enthusiastic about all things public cloud. Experience with hands on implementation on platforms including at least one of: Microsoft Azure and/or Amazon Web Services.

Industry knowledge is key, as well as knowledge in building an engineering organisation. The role requires a talented technologist with experience architecting and defining engineering processes and best practices to both enhance our public cloud development and ensure success in migrating applications and services to the cloud.

About us

Our work supports the NHS to deliver high quality services for patients and best value for taxpayers.

Our staff have expertise across hundreds of specialisms - for example, clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, computer science, software engineering, education and training, and commercial - so we can design and deliver quality NHS services effectively.

We lead the NHS in England by:

• Enabling local systems and providers to improve the health of their people and patients and reduce health inequalities
• Making the NHS a great place to work, where our people can make a difference and achieve their potential
• Working collaboratively to ensure our healthcare workforce has the right knowledge, skills, values and behaviours to deliver accessible, compassionate care
• Optimising the use of digital technology, research, and innovation

Earlier this year the Government announced that NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the Department. The purpose of this change is to create a smaller, more strategic centre which will reduce duplication and eliminate waste.

Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in-person.

Job responsibilities

You can find further details about the role, organisational structure, recruitment profile, expected outcomes and benefits information in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.

Please note that this is a fixed term contract as this is a short term vacancy.

Applicants from within the NHS will be offered on a secondment basis only, agreement should be obtained from their employer prior to submitting the application.

The post of Head of ICT Function has been awarded a Recruitment and Retention Premia (RRP) in response to current labour market conditions. In recognition of this, the role attracts anadditional monthly RRP payment equal to 6% per annum.

Please be aware that RRP is non-contractual and subject to review.

To meet National Security Vetting requirements, SC clearances require 5 years continuous UK residency. In certain cases, this can be reduced to three years continuous UK residency, withadditional overseas checks for the previous two years.

Candidates who were posted abroad for service with HM Government, Armed Forces or within a UK government role - will still be considered.

Please make sure you meet these requirements before applying for this role. Youdont need to have security clearance level already, however, failure to achieve the requirements for security clearance level after offer, will result in the job offer being withdrawn.

For further advice please checkhttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/national-security-vetting-clearance-levels#security-check-sc.

For further information on National Security Vetting please check National security vetting: clearance levels - GOV.UK, information on the Security Vetting and Clearances Intranet page or [e-mail].

Secondments

Applicants from within the NHS will be offered on a secondment basis only, agreement should be obtained from their employer prior to submitting the application.

Person Specification

Knowledge & Experience

• Experience leading and building an engineering team within an Agile environment
• Deep understanding of industry wide cloud technology strategies and best practice
• Hands-on experience in building distributed / service oriented / microservice-style, composable and cloud-based architectures
• Strong experience developing modern cloud architectures, working with container platforms, with a special focus on scalability, security and resilience
• Experience with public cloud infrastructure and platforms, AWS and Azure

Skills - Leadership, People Management and Development

• Lead with care: provide a safe environment to enable others to do their work effectively
• Engage the team: stretch them for excellence and encourage cooperation with the end goal of generating creative ideas
• Hold to account: agree clear performance goals and targets, supporting individuals and teams to take responsibility for results but also challenging them to continually improve, creating a mindset for innovative change
• Has set clear team objectives and priorities and monitors their achievement
• Has championed individual and collective team development
• Experienced in building the team's capability to match changing delivery needs

Skills - Personal Attributes

• Works across boundaries, looks for collective success, listens, involves, respects and learns from the contribution of others
• Actively develops themselves and others
• Very strong leadership: able to motivate, inspire and lead groups of managers and staff towards corporate aims and objectives
• Decisive with effective political and negotiation skills
• Dynamic personality with the ability to build trusted stakeholder relationships and wide support networks
• Highly analytical with a structured and methodical approach to problem solving and able to translate and interpret large amounts of data

Qualifications

• Masters or equivalent qualification, specifically in a computer, scientific or mathematical subject or equivalent experience
• Evidence of specialist knowledge in Cloud and DevSecOps

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer name

NHS England

Address

Wellington Place/Wellington House/ Hexagon House

Head of Infrastructure (Infrastructure Operations)

£96,822.52 to £111,657.22 a yearincludes RRP at 6% (Excluding London Weighting)

Contract

Fixed term

Duration

12 months

Working pattern

Reference number

990-TD-IT-15106-E

Job locations

Wellington Place/Wellington House/ Hexagon House