Workday Platform Lead: Strategy, Security & Integrations

FirstGroup plc; Leeds, Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

First Rail is seeking an experienced leader to manage the Workday platform, ensuring stability, scalability, and alignment with enterprise architecture, IT security standards, and business needs. This role sits in the IT team with London or Leeds locations and hybrid working.

Your responsibilities include defining and executing the Workday roadmap, ensuring IT governance and data privacy, owning platform architecture and integrations, overseeing API management and vendor relationships, and

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in Workday platform management or enterprise systems leadership.
• Deep understanding of Workday architecture, module configuration, and integration technologies (REST/SOAP APIs, middleware).
• Knowledge of IT security principles, data encryption, and compliance frameworks (GDPR, ISO27001).
• Strong experience in IT service management (ITIL), change control, and release management.
• Ability to design scalable, secure, and resilient solutions.
• Work collaboratively with the internal IT Infrastructure Team and our AMS partner.
• Excellent planning, communication, and problem-solving skills.
• Strong leadership and stakeholder engagement capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the Workday platform roadmap in alignment with IT and business strategies.
• Ensure compliance with IT governance, security, and data privacy policies.
• Own platform architecture, integrations, tenant strategy and release planning with a strong focus on IT best practices.
• Oversee API management, middleware solutions, and integration with enterprise systems (e.g., ERP, identity management).
• Manage vendor relationships and AMS support for escalations and optimisations.
• Implement robust monitoring, incident management, and disaster recovery plans
• Partner with HR and IT teams to ensure seamless service delivery and technical support. Work with Workday team, dotted line report into Workday Product Owner.
• Drive automation and process improvements leveraging IT tools and frameworks

Skills

Workday Expertise

Enterprise Leadership

APIs & Integration

IT Security

ITIL/Service Mgmt

Stakeholder Engagement

Vendor Management

Education

Workday Certifications

Tools

Workday Studio

PowerShell

FreshService

AWS

Azure

Job description

First Rail is seeking an experienced leader to manage the Workday platform, ensuring stability, scalability, and alignment with enterprise architecture, IT security standards, and business needs. This role sits in the IT team with London or Leeds locations and hybrid working.

Your responsibilities include defining and executing the Workday roadmap, ensuring IT governance and data privacy, owning platform architecture and integrations, overseeing API management and vendor relationships, and