Head of Technology Value & Insight

M&S; London; Hybrid; GBP 200,000 +; Full time

Job summary

A leading retailer in London is seeking a strategic leader to drive a 3-year application simplification strategy, establish technological oversight, and enhance partner engagement. The ideal candidate will possess strong commercial competence, excellent communication skills, and the ability to manage diverse teams effectively. Join us in transforming the future of retail through innovation and inclusivity.

Benefits

20% colleague discount

Competitive holiday entitlement

Discretionary bonus schemes

Defined Contribution Pension Scheme

Wellbeing support

Charity volunteer day

Qualifications

• Expertise in technology economics and operational thinking.
• Strong communication to engage senior leadership.
• Experience managing diverse teams and partners.

Responsibilities

• Orchestrate a 3-year application simplification strategy.
• Establish the Technology Value & Insight team.
• Foster alignment with partners through governance frameworks.
• Manage phased decommissioning and asset management.
• Define metrics to promote a culture of continuous improvement.

Skills

Commercial competence

Excellent communication skills

Proven track record

Collaboration

Programme management experience

Job description

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Job Description

What's in it for you
Being a part of M&S is exactly that - playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day. We're an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing outstanding quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.

Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special...

• After completing your probationary period, you'll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.
• Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days!
• Discretionary bonus schemes awarded based on how you achieve your personal objectives and our performance as a business.
• A generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.
• A dedicated welcome to our teams with a tailored induction and a wide range of training programmes to develop your skills.
• Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices portal to maximise your financial and personal wellbeing.
• Industry-leading parental, adoption and neonatal policies, providing support and flexibility for your family.
• Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support for all colleagues including access to our 24/7 Virtual GP and PAM Assist to support you and your family.
• A charity volunteer day to support a charity or cause you're passionate about through a dedicated day away from work.

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What you'll do

• Strategic Leadership & Planning: Orchestrate a 3-year application simplification strategy aligned with business goals, targeting 30-50% cost reductions, while embedding value engineering across technology and tooling ecosystems.
• Technology Oversight & Optimisation: Establish the Technology Value & Insight team to drive transparency, benchmark £600m+ spend, and lead initiatives like CMDB creation for 600+ assets and FinOps cost optimisation across £150m cloud spend.
• Partner Engagement & Governance: Foster alignment and accountability with partners, implementing governance forums, performance tracking frameworks, and external benchmarking partnerships to ensure sustained progress.
• Operational Delivery & Change Readiness: Manage phased decommissioning, support resource mobilisation, lead asset management maturity, and champion disruption-minimising practices across data migration, organisational change, and tooling.
• Performance, Culture & Continuous Improvement: Define critical metrics, promote lessons learned, celebrate wins, and mentor teams to cultivate a culture of simplification, innovation, and tech estate optimisation across the business.

Who you are

• Expert commercial competence, with the ability to blend technical, operational, and critical thinking. Strong understanding of technology economics.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to inspire, engage, influence, and secure agreement across senior leadership, and to articulate technology value and TCO to c-suite partners.
• Proven track record of leading high-performing teams that deliver high-impact outcomes.
• Collaborator with the ability to engage and manage diverse teams and partners to drive shared outcomes.
• Significant experience in programme or portfolio management within IT, ideally involving application decommissioning, legacy system migration, or similar transformation initiatives.

Everyone's welcome
We are ambitious about the future of retail. We're disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We're transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen. We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together. If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don't hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.

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