Head of Performance Strategy

FirstGroup; Greater London; On-site; GBP 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Free Travel for you and a nominated Tf

Season ticket discounts

Employee benefits portal

Job summary

First Rail London is seeking a senior leader to drive the long-term performance strategy for the London Overground network. You will develop a strategic roadmap, align performance improvements with concession commitments, and lead a team focused on continuous improvement and performance intelligence.

Key responsibilities include forecasting, operating plan development, and collaboration with TfL and Network Rail to deliver measurable outcomes for customers and stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Significant railway operational and performance management experience.
• Experience developing and delivering strategic improvement programmes.
• Strong understanding of railway performance management and the Whole System Model.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills.
• Strong analytical and strategic thinking capability.
• Experience developing business cases and investment proposals.
• Proven leadership experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development and delivery of the long-term performance strategy for First Rail London.
• Develop and maintain a strategic roadmap to deliver improvements in performance and customer outcomes.
• Provide leadership of organisational learning, performance forecasting and operating plan development.
• Lead a specialist team focused on continuous improvement and performance intelligence.
• Represent the organisation at strategic performance forums and stakeholder groups.

Skills

Railway operations

Performance management

Strategic thinking

Stakeholder management

Leadership

Business case development

Investment proposals

Job description

Who are we

First Rail London (FRL) is the train operating company responsible for running the London Overground network under a concession agreement with Transport for London (TfL). The concession began in May 2026.

FirstRail London is part of FirstGroup, one of the leading rail operators and one of the largest bus operators in the UK. FirstGroup operates services throughout the UK and Ireland, with over 30,000 employees providing services that make travel smoother and life easier. FirstGroup works hard to reduce its impact on the environment, introducing cleaner and more environmentally responsible methods of transport.

About the job

• Lead the development and delivery of the long-term performance strategy for First Rail London.
• Develop and maintain a strategic roadmap to deliversustainable improvements in operational performance, resilience and customer outcomes across the London Overground network.
• Provide leadership oforganisational learning, performance forecasting, operating plan development and strategic performance improvement activity, ensuring the business develops the capability required to deliver future performance objectives, concession commitments and stakeholder expectations.
• Lead a specialist team focused oncontinuous improvement, performance intelligence and future operating model development to turn insight into action and action into measurable performance outcomes.

Your main responsibilities will be:

Performance Strategy

• Develop and maintain the organisation's Performance Strategy.
• Develop long-term performance improvement roadmaps aligned to business objectives and concession commitments.
• Identify future performance risks and opportunities across the network and works to implement measures to mitigate them.
• Lead strategic planning activity to improve performance, resilience and operational efficiency.
• Ensure performance priorities align with operational, customer and stakeholder requirements.

Strategic Performance Improvement

• Lead delivery of strategic performance improvement programmes.
• Sponsor and oversee concession commitments, bid initiatives and performance transformation activity.
• Develop and maintain a pipeline of future performance improvement opportunities.
• Challenge existing operating practices and identify opportunities for innovation and improvement.
• Benchmark performance strategies and best practice across the rail industry.

Organisational Learning and Continuous Improvement

• Ensure learning from incidents, investigations and operational reviews is embedded across the organisation.
• Promote a Just Culture approach to performance improvement and incident learning.
• Ensure recurring themes and systemic risks are identified and addressed.
• Support the identification and removal of organisational TEPID OIL (training, equipment, people, infrastructure, doctrine, organisation, information and logistics).

Future Operating Model Development

• Sponsor strategic reviews of key lines of route and operating models.
• Oversee development of future operating plans including timetable, depot, fleet and traincrew considerations.
• Ensure whole-system reviews are undertaken to identify opportunities for fundamental performance improvement.
• Support development of operating plans capable of delivering future capacity and performance requirements.

Performance Forecasting and Intelligence

• Ensure robust performance forecasting and modelling capability exists within the organization, including commercial forecasting and modelling (Schedule 7 & 8)
• Use predictive analysis to identify emerging risks and opportunities.
• Support development of performance improvement schemes and associated business cases.
• Oversee production of strategic insight to inform investment decisions and prioritisation activity.
• Ensure benefits from performance initiatives are measured and tracked.

Stakeholder Management

• Develop strong working relationships with Network Rail, TfL, fleet partners and other stakeholders.
• Lead joint strategic performance initiatives and improvement programmes.
• Represent the organisation at strategic performance forums and working groups.
• Promotecollaborative approaches to performance improvement across industry partners

As a minimum, you will need to have:

• Significant railway operational and performance management experience.
• Experience of developing and delivering strategic improvement programmes.
• Strong understanding of railway performance management and the Whole System Model.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills.
• Strong analytical and strategic thinking capability.
• Experience developing business cases and investment proposals.
• Proven leadership experience.

Desirable:

• Experience of working with Network Rail and industry partners.
• Change management or continuous improvement qualification.
• Programmemanagement experience.
• Experience developing long-term operating plans and performance strategies.

About the location

Redman Place, Stratford - travel across the full London Overground network required on an adhoc basis

The Reward

• Free Travel for you and a nominated person at your address on TfL Network - this alone is worth a potential total of £5,200 per annum
• 75% discount off season tickets and leisure travel on other Train Operating Companies
• Discounts on European rail services after 1 year of service
• First Xclusives – a benefits portal offering a wide range of benefits and discounts
• Employee Assistance Programme - 24hr helpline, covering a multitude of subjects

We all belong at First Rail London.FirstGroup's vision is to provide an inclusive environment for all colleagues, across its group of businesses, ensuring all candidates have an equal opportunity to access meaningful employment.

We value our differences such as age, gender, LGBTQIA+, ethnicity, religion, and disability. We maintain a zero tolerance towards any form of prejudice towards our colleagues, customers, and future talent.

We celebrate and encourage diversity of thought, progressive ways of working and seeing all our colleagues grow and thrive.

We review all roles and job descriptions to ensure they are accessible and, where possible, we support and provide flexible working options; we recommend that you refer to each vacancy description for further details.

If you require additional support to complete your application due to a disability or neurodivergent condition, for example, dyslexia, dyspraxia, or autism, please follow the links below. We encourage you to share any additional needs you may require so we can provide a fair and equal process for all who apply.

https://exceptionalindividuals.com/neurodiversity/

https://www.healthassured.org/blog/neurodiversity/