About the job

Job summary

Lead the way in modernising Parliament and bringing it to more people through the power of digital. Heading up the Platforms directorate, this role will be accountable for the provision of secure, robust, and modern platform services enabling Parliament to realise the benefits of digital technology. You will ensure that the digital platforms provided are in line with the Digital Strategy and enable the Houses to achieve their business needs and priorities.

As a key member of the Senior Management Team, you’ll have the challenge of:

• the critical shared services and core technologies delivered by the Platforms team which are central to the delivery of all digital services in Parliament.
• leading and supporting a move to product centric ways of working, to ensure plans are in place for ongoing lifecycle management, to reduce, remove and prevent technical debt.
• through your leadership, defining standards of excellence across all areas of delivery, including user experience, accessibility, availability, cyber security, and operational performance to provide a high-quality service evidenced against agreed measures and benchmarking.
• Being responsible for capacity planning for the Platforms and the digital services it operates.
• developing and continually maintaining a documented digital roadmap for all platform services used by Parliament, in line with the direction provided by the overarching Digital and emerging Technology and requirements of the services and products operating on them.

Job description

• Providing senior leadership, oversight and strategic direction for digital platforms delivered by PDS throughout their lifecycle.
• Leading the technical design and delivery of Parliament’s digital platforms with skills and experience across the portfolio, including connectivity, cloud services (public, private, hybrid) device management, digital identity management, productivity and collaboration, and IT service management. Providing technical leadership, supported by the “Heads of” in the directorate and relevant subject matter experts, based on a solid understanding and experience of all aspects of network infrastructure, Microsoft cloud services and Windows endpoint technologies, Apple technologies, the ServiceNow platform.
• Ensuring the user-centred design best practice is inherent in the digital platforms operated.
• Unifying the technical leadership for Parliament’s Platform portfolio, leading the technical architectural alignment to the agreed roadmaps and standards for the team, and ensuring alignment with the wider Digital Service and Parliament’s digital standards and enterprise architecture.
• Ensuring the successful delivery of digital platforms services to the agreed delivery metrics on availability, performance, capacity, and capability, ensuring appropriate ownership of top-level delivery risks, issues, and dependencies, managing escalations, and delegating responsibly.
• As a member of PDS Senior Management Team support the overall success of the Digital Service, working collaboratively with all other SMT (Senior Management Team) members and supporting the Managing Director of PDS to lead the organisation with a “cabinet-style” approach.
• Operating as a senior exemplar for PDS culture, values, and behaviours.

The role will collaborate with colleagues on:

• Ensuring requirements capture and business analysis informed by user research is acted upon. Ensuring that the creation and acceptance of platform design, functional, technical specifications, user experience documentation for all services completed in accordance with industry best practice.
• Operating effective release management and quality assurance, including auto/rapid deployment, testing (user, integration and technical) and rollback processes.

Person specification

Criterion 1
You will be a Senior Technology Leader with a proven track record of delivering successful digital platform services. You will have strong credentials in cloud computing, infrastructure, third-party solutions, and managed service providers.

Criterion 2
You will be a highly effective leader with strong stakeholder management skills. You will be able demonstrate how you have translated business requirements and user/stakeholder needs into effective work plans and practical working solutions within a complex matrix managed organisation.

Criterion 3
You will have extensive experience in managing all aspects of the digital platforms’ lifecycle to reduce technical debt and mitigate risk. You will have proven ability to resiliently respond to cyber security threats while also ensuring user needs continue to be met.  

Criterion 4
You will be a strategic thinker with the ability to solve complex problems and plan across multiple time horizons to ensure the team and products under your control continue to support the needs of end users, colleagues and partner organisations. You can demonstrate product workloads are developed and operated successfully, enabled by Agile delivery methods.

Criterion 5
You will have proven experience of procurement, supplier selection, and contract management, delivering to service level agreements and agreed KPIs (key performance indicators) while also ensuring highly effective management of resources and budgets to achieve financial targets.

Criterion 6
You will have excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to present complex information clearly and effectively in appropriate styles at all levels. 

Criterion 7
You will have proven experience of providing strong leadership, building, and maintaining a high performing and actively engaged team, including promoting a diverse and inclusive working environment.

Benefits

Please refer to our Candidate Information Pack for a full list of our benefits which include:

• up to 35 days annual leave in addition to bank holidays
• generous maternity pay policy up to 6 months full pay
• great pension scheme options (contributory and non-contributory)
• on-site subsidised gym, nursery, catering, post office, travel office and GP
• flexible options including hybrid working and family friendly policies

Things you need to know

Selection process details

How To Apply

Please make sure you're clear on the requirements of the role. These can be found in the Job Description and Candidate Information Pack. You will need to upload a CV and show how you meet up to criterions 1,2,4 & 7. Our application process is anonymous, so please remove any personal information from your CV.

Apply By: 29th January 2024 at 23:55

Interviews: 19th February 2024

Format: Presentation + Panel Interview (On-Site)

Our Culture

For our people, we provide an amazing opportunity to bring their talents to an institution that sits right at the heart of society in the UK. We are helping to change UK Parliament and strengthen democracy. What matters here is your potential for growth and your commitment to playing your part in our ongoing success.

We are passionate about providing an environment which promotes inclusion, diversity and equality. Regardless of your age, gender, ethnicity, beliefs or any of the other things that make you, you. We welcome applications from people who feel under-represented in the workforce. This includes those who may feel disadvantaged because of their socioeconomic circumstances.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.