Director, IT Operations Milton Keynes, England
Job description
Location
Milton Keynes, GB
Department Name
Route Services
About Network Rail
We are on a mission to become a company that is on the side of passengers and freight users, is easy to engage with and is a place that people are proud to work for. We have challenging and exciting times ahead, and we know we have a lot to contribute to our customers lives, our environment and the people who work for us:
- Rail is already the greenest form of transport, but we want to make sure our railway is greener, resilient to climate change, and able to provide an excellent service for years to come – we know this is important to our customers and our people;
- We recognise the social and economic role we play in Britain - from helping to bring communities together through transport links or providing jobs to supporting issues that affect society such as homelessness and encouraging our people to get involved in community groups through volunteering;
- We want to help our people achieve a good work-life balance and so we encourage our people to work flexibly;
- There are opportunities for our people to learn and grow, whether that be through different forms of training and development, to a broad range of career opportunities or being part of one of our employee networks;
All this is what makes Network Rail such a rewarding place to work. As Director of IT Operations, you will have a unique opportunity to lead at a strategic level and make improvements that directly impact on the delivery of day-to-day rail operational services across the country through managing large scale enterprise IT.
If you like the sound of this, take a look below and visit our page on ‘Life Inside Network Rail’ for further information!
Inside Network Rail - Network Rail
At Network Rail, we own, manage, maintain Britain’s railway infrastructure. That’s 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels, viaducts and thousands of signals, level crossings, and we manage 20 of Britain’s largest stations. We have responsibility for the safe transportation of over a billion passengers journeys a year as well over 15 billion tonnes of freight.
We help connect people to their friends and families and get goods to their destination safely and efficiently. We’re an organisation where people matter. When you're part of our team, you matter to us and you matter to millions. Watch our video to find out more!
About our people and the recruitment process - We’re an inclusive employer of choice and we welcome applications from everyone!
We encourage our colleagues to work flexibly, as we know traditional working patterns don’t always fit. If you want to consider working flexibly, just let us know and we’ll do our best to help and invest in your career with us, whilst you have a healthy work life balance. You can also benefit from a subsidised gym based within our building in Milton Keynes.
We're also a Disability Confident Leader employer and we’ll try our best to adapt the process and offer a reasonable alternative to help support people with disabilities access, apply and interview for roles.
Brief Description
It is an exciting time for the railway, and an exciting time to join Network Rail’s IT department. With the recent Bradshaw address highlighting the future path for Great British Railways this is a rare opportunity for someone looking for significant challenge and a chance to help shape the future of the railways.
As a national provider of IT the role of Director, IT Operations is a critical role in the safe provision of 24x7 IT capabilities that help deliver day to day rail operational services. This role will lead the central Route Services (RS) IT Operations function to meet business requirements for all production and non-production environments.
Like our railway, our IT landscape is large and complex, supporting over 90k devices (smartphones to desktops) across 2k sites nationwide to a customer base of nearly 50k people. Everything from Servicedesk, to field support, to the provision of data centre and cloud services. With an extensive application estate of over 100 business critical applications delivered through a variety of service models and providers, the role is both exciting and challenging.
Over the last 5 years we have transformed our IT estate to a more modern infrastructure, whilst leveraging the benefits of cloud platforms and services. Our digital journey continues developing and implementing a suite of new platforms and capabilities supporting digital product development, data orchestration and open access, and automation.
Leading a team of over 300 people located at both Milton Keynes and Manchester, and managing an operational budget of over £100m, the ideal candidate will have extensive experience of managing large scale enterprise IT across both on-premise and cloud landscapes using combinations of insourced and outsourced services. They will have demonstrable experience in building relationships across internal teams, global managed service providers (e.g. Atos, DXC, IBM), support and maintenance providers and global technology vendors (Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, ServiceNow). With a track record of delivering service improvements and business change through the introduction of new technologies and process change. That coupled with strong commercial acumen and a good understanding of Cybersecurity and operational risk management are essential components for running a modern 24x7 IT operation
About the role (External)
Key Accountabilities
- Plan, operate and manage a high availability, resilient and scalable IT infrastructure and application services to meet agreed service levels, within agreed budget and headcount levels. Fully accountable for the provision of Network Rail’s national IT operational services. As part of the RS IT Leadership Team, drive strategic vision and direction for the function.
- Direct and lead transformational change and continuous service improvement across a national and centralised IT support and infrastructure services function.
- Lead the successful delivery of all Route Services IT Operational services across over 2,000 sites nationally. Managing operational costs of circa £100m per annum and geographically dispersed teams of circa 300 FTE staff.
- Plan and deliver appropriate infrastructure and application services (both on and off premise), working closely with the RS IT Leadership Team to understand future demand, emerging technologies and areas for improvement.
- Provide sponsorship and leadership in the development of the IT infrastructure renewals and enhancements plan with a budget of c.£50m per annum, working collaboratively with the Director of IT Delivery to prioritise and direct technology projects to maintain IT operational service levels.
- Develop and operate strategies and plans for the efficient and effective management of all IT assets (hardware and software) to reduce operational risk and maintain service effectiveness of IT systems and services that underpin Network Rail’s business.
- Lead the Test Services, Change and Release management teams to facilitate the smooth transition of applications and infrastructure into the production and support environments.
- Direct and develop the relationships with our strategic service suppliers, maintaining current and future service levels whilst engendering and promoting a culture of collaboration and implementing continuous service improvement to improve service efficiency and effectiveness.
- Direct and lead supplier contract services for all support and maintenance partners, including the responsibility for software licensing and hardware maintenance.
- Conduct an ongoing assessment of infrastructure services and make strategic and tactical sourcing decisions against industry standards for cost and service levels. Drive the continuous improvement of RS IT’s infrastructure and application support services.
- Accountable for identifying and managing the relevant enterprise level risks to implement timely delivery of appropriate risk mitigation strategies, including leading the execution of RS IT service continuity and IT disaster recovery plans.
Job Skills, Experience and Qualifications
Essential
- Substantial experience at senior IT levels, directly reporting to the IT Director or CIO in comparably sized organisations.
- Significant experience of leading IT operations, IT service support and IT infrastructure functions at large enterprise organisations, with experience of managing both traditional on-premise services as well as cloud services and platforms.
- Demonstrable experience and ability to engage, communicate and influence c-suite stakeholders.
- Demonstrable IT transformation experience in leading and formulating IT strategy and functional change to improve service efficiency and effectiveness.
- Significant understanding of information systems industry, emerging technologies and the implications for the wider business environment.
- Understands, explains and ability to present complex technical ideas to both technical and non-technical audiences at all levels in a persuasive and convincing manner.
- Demonstrates awareness of developments in the IS industry and in own area(s) of expertise.
- Extensive experience of leading and delivering a multimillion-pound operational budget.
- Demonstrable experience of building successful partnerships with third party IT service & infrastructure suppliers
- Ability to maintain stable performance under pressure and /or against opposition
- Formal IT Service Management & Operations qualifications (e.g. ITIL, CMI, COBIT) or a degree in a computer related discipline.
- Knowledge of the rail industry
- Able to innovate, create ideas with temerity to propose.
- Educated to degree level or higher
- Lead and direct geographically dispersed teams
- Can demonstrate understanding and is capable of communicating the potential impact of emerging technologies on organisations and individuals and can analyse the risks of using or not using such technologies.
Salary: £111,725 -£135,000 plus £8,000 annual car allowance and other associated benefits
Closing date: 6th March 2023 - Late applications will not be accepted.
This role is based at The Quadrant, Milton Keynes. For this role you need to live within 75/90 minutes of The Quadrant in Milton Keynes.
You can visit Evenbreak’s Career Hive for advice on accessibility support if you’re unsure of the options available. Should you require any reasonable adjustments/modifications, please add a note to your application.
