Systems Manager - Digital

Financial Ombudsman Service; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 72,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday entitlement

Generous pension

Private medical insurance

On-site gym London

Job summary

The Financial Ombudsman Service is seeking a Systems Manager – Digital for its external-facing digital estate. You will own core platforms such as Consumer and Business Portals, Digital Front Door, and Website applications, ensuring security, high availability, and seamless integration with back-end casework tools.

You will lead a team of technical analysts, drive change governance, and partner with product owners to deliver features within a regulated, customer-facing context.

Qualifications

• Significant experience as a technical SME for customer-facing web architecture and digital portals in a regulated financial environment.
• Extensive experience managing third-party vendors/AMS partners against strict SLAs and governance.
• Proven track record leading technical staff and growing technical capability.

Responsibilities

• Set and execute the technical roadmap for the digital platform estate, ensuring security and modernity.
• Oversee third-party vendors and AMS providers with governance and value for money.
• Collaborate with Digital Product Owners to prioritise backlog and balance technical debt.

Skills

Web architecture

Vendor management

Technical leadership

Cloud infrastructure

Job description

Systems Manager - Digital

Join a team where Purpose drives everything we do, Ambition fuels our growth, Respect shapes our culture and Trust builds our foundation. We're not just hiring — we're inviting you to build the future with us. If you're curious, driven, and ready to leave your mark, this is your invitation to make your next move.

Permanent

Working hours: 35 hours per week / full time.

We are open to candidates who wish to work in either London or Coventry.

Salary

London £65,000 - £72,000 depending on skills and experience

Coventry £58,000 - £65,000 depending on sills and experience.

Reporting to

Senior Technology Portfolio Manager

Hybrid policy

Hybrid working and the collaboration of a great office environment. Our permanent hybrid policy sees us all working at least four days across a fortnight in the office. As well as extensive opportunities for personal and career development.

About Us

The Financial Ombudsman Service is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that plays a vital role in UK financial services. Every day we help resolve disputes between consumers, or small businesses, and their financial service providers.

The purpose of this role is to act as the strategic and technical lead for the Financial Ombudsman Service’s external-facing digital estate, driving platform evolution, robust technical governance, and high-performing third-party delivery.

The Digital Systems team plays a vital role in developing and supporting the external-facing technical estate of the Financial Ombudsman Service.

As the System Manager – Digital, you will have end-to-end technical ownership of our core digital platforms, including our Consumer and Business Digital Portals, and our Digital Front Door online complaint submission form and Website, Website Applications (such as the Interest Rate Calculator). You will serve as the principal technical authority for these environments, ensuring they are secure, highly available, and seamlessly integrated with our back-end casework tools.

What You’ll Do

• Setting and executing the technical roadmap for the digital platform estate, ensuring our public-facing tools remain secure, compliant, and technically modern.
• Managing and holding third-party vendors and AMS providers tightly to account, ensuring strict adherence to contractual technical governance, performance metrics, and value for money.
• Collaborating closely with internal Digital Product Owners to prioritise backlog items, balance technical debt, and ensure new feature releases support the overarching casework strategy.
• Overseeing the technical integrity and continuous availability of our high-volume entry points, specifically the portals and online complaint application forms.
• Building, managing, and developing a high-performing team of technical analysts; setting clear individual objectives, allocating workloads, and acting as a technical coach.
• Implementing a rigorous change management and deployment governance framework across all digital web applications and calculators to prevent operational disruption.
• Serving as the senior technical escalation point for complex, cross-platform incidents, driving root-cause analysis alongside external partners.
• Keeping pace with external technical, legal, and accessibility developments (such as WCAG compliance and digital security standards) to keep our platforms safe and inclusive.

Minimum Criteria

• Significant experience as a technical subject matter expert for customer-facing web architecture, digital portals, and complex integrations within a regulated service or financial sector environment.
• Extensive experience directly managing and holding third-party technical vendors or AMS partners to account against demanding service level contracts.
• Leading, supervising, and coaching technical staff or analysts, with a proven track record of growing technical capability and driving team performance.
• Deep knowledge of web content management platforms, cloud-based digital infrastructure, and data workflows connecting external front-ends to internal case management engines.
• Strong problem-solving credentials, featuring critical thinking and complex decision-making skills to resolve multi-party technical incidents under operational pressure.
• Collaborative stakeholder management, with demonstrated diplomacy and influencing skills to navigate competing priorities between product managers, security teams, and suppliers.
• Leading user acceptance testing (UAT) frameworks and deployment governance procedures across a continuous development lifecycle.

Why You'll Love Working With Us

We are a values led organisation. Our values define our culture, influence our decisions, and underpin our vision and strategy. They set out how we play our PART through Purpose, Ambition, Respect and Trust. You can learn more about our values here: https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/who-we-are/aims-values

Flexibility: remote, hybrid, in-office

Wellbeing: Health plan, gym memberships, mental health support

Growth: We invest in your future with courses, mentorship, promotions

Culture: Diverse. Inclusive. Collaborative. Fun.

We also offer an attractive, competitive salary and flexible benefits to suit our people.

Benefits and Perks

• 25 days holiday entitlement, with the option to buy extra or sell days
• Generous pension
• Various Family Friendly Policies, including enhanced maternity pay, carers and dependants leave
• Employer provided benefits such as Private medical insurance, virtual GP, Critical illness cover, Life assurance cover, to name a few
• Choice of voluntary benefits including Technology scheme, Cycle to work scheme, Will-writing service amongst others
• Gym membership discounts, and a fully equipped on-site gym open 24/7 in London only

Equality and Diversity

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader and, under the scheme, will progress a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria to interview.

Interviews may be conducted via video, telephone, or a panel Interview, with some vacancies requiring an online assessment to measure the minimum criteria.

The Financial Ombudsman is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all team. We view diversity as fundamental to our success and welcome applications from underrepresented groups across all communities.

We welcome the responsible use of AI to support application preparation. Any CV or supporting statement should still represent your own experience, knowledge, and achievements, enabling us to gain a genuine understanding of what you would bring to the role.

Who we are… With fairness at the heart of everything we do, we embrace difference and treat everyone as equals. We’re a diverse organisation, but something we all share is our values. They’re central to the way we work – and work together. We’re an independent, not-for-profit organisation that sorts out disputes between financial businesses and their customers. We do this by making decisions that are fair – and feel fair to both sides.

The Financial Ombudsman Service is an equal opportunities employer. All applicants will be treated in a fair and equal manner and in accordance with the law, regardless of gender, marital status, race, religion, colour, age, disability or sexual orientation. We’re committed to being a great place to work – attracting and developing people from the widest possible range of backgrounds. We want everyone to perform at their best and feel able to be themselves. We understand that if we’re diverse and inclusive, we’ll better understand different perspectives, which is fundamental to our job resolving financial complaints.

You can read more about Diversity and Inclusion.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. Disabled applicants who fulfil the minimum criteria for the role will be progressed to the next stage of the process. Do let us know of any reasonable adjustments you need. You will need to demonstrate that you meet the minimum criteria in order to qualify for the Disability Confident scheme.