At AQA, we’re committed to advancing education and we’re committed to our people. As the largest provider of academic qualifications in the UK, we mark over 10 million exam papers each year and it’s our people who make this happen. Enterprise Application Delivery Lead Permanent Manchester (Hybrid – minimum 2 x days a week in the office) Salary: £51,475 – £57,668 Benefits AQA is looking for someone who can do more than lead Enterprise Application delivery. We need a strategic thinker who will be responsible for driving the operational delivery of first-class application support and enhancements for our HR and Finance enterprise application platforms. This means owning and effectively coordinating complex technical workstreams comprising of day-to-day incidents and change requests through to large strategic roadmap delivery items. The Enterprise Application Delivery Lead reports into the Enterprise Applications Service Owner, within the Enterprise Technology group. This is a key role in our Enterprise Technology group, sitting between our internal business teams and external delivery partners who provide the hands-on technical delivery resource and expertise. You’ll be the glue that holds together our Workday and i-Trent delivery and support capability, whilst working closely and collaboratively with internal business areas, ensuring alignment to all relevant standards and processes whilst keeping the detail sharp and the stakeholders aligned. This is to ensure a coordinated prioritised delivery pipeline, underpinning a strategically aligned successful technical delivery. You’ll work closely with Product Owners, Senior Stakeholders, and support functions such as Security, Architecture, Service Desk, Incident Management and Change. You’ll need to influence, challenge, coordinate, and lead – all while keeping the customer experience front and centre. What you’ll need to bring: Demonstratable experience of managing/supporting enterprise application delivery (Workday and i-Trent desirable). Strong customer focus. Ability to lead and operate in conjunction with 3rd party suppliers – vendor/supplier management. Confident balancing strategic and operational demands to ensure optimal delivery outputs in line with strategic business objectives. Be results focused, able to make pragmatic decisions and deliver at pace. Exceptional stakeholder management and the confidence to influence and challenge constructively. A solid grasp of ITIL principles (ITIL certification desirable). Good understanding of project methodologies (SCRUM, Agile, Waterfall, DevOps, Kanban etc.). What you’ll get in return: 25 days’ holiday Bank Holidays Christmas shutdown. Flexible working and genuine investment in your development. 35-hour week. Excellent pension (6% – 11.5% employer contribution). Enhanced family leave. What next? Apply via our portal. Every applicant gets a written response. Closing date for applications: Wednesday 27th August Recruitment Agencies We have a preferred supplier list (PSL) in place. Unsolicited CVs will be treated as a gift. We will not be subject to or liable under your terms and conditions for agency fees. Full Job Description Summary The Delivery Lead is responsible for driving the operational delivery of a first class system support and enhancement function for our HR and Finance corporate platforms. This means owning and effectively managing the delivery of a pipeline of work comprising day-to-day incidents and change requests through to large roadmap items.The Delivery Lead reports into the Service Owner, who in turn reports into the Head of Enterprise Applications within the Enterprise Technology area. This is a key internal role sitting between our external 3rd party delivery partners (who provide the hands-on technical delivery resource and expertise) and our internal business teams. The remit covers our HR and Finance corporate platforms (currently Workday and i-Trent with an increasing footprint as we centralise our corporate platforms) The Delivery Lead must work closely and collaboratively with the internal business Product Owners, as well as offering active challenge to ensure a coordinated prioritised delivery pipeline, underpinning a strategically aligned successful technical delivery. Regular engagement is also required with key senior stakeholders and other support functions, including Security & Risk, Change Hubs and Architecture. The role is about creating and delivering effective plans to ensure that things get done whilst ensuring alignment to all relevant standards and processes. Activities: Maintains a holistic view of the delivery pipeline for relevant systems (currently Workday/ i-Trent) Gatekeeper of pipeline deliverables, to ensure appropriate alignment with both strategic business goals and defined technology strategy and approach Maintain a level of technical knowledge of the Workday and i-Trent platforms to ensure suitable technical ownership, consultative advice and guidance to the business product owners to address the business areas needs Active stakeholder management to collaboratively engage and also challenge stakeholders of all levels Proactive business engagement to understand the business domains currently served to improve the operational and future delivery aspects Management and ownership of deliveries / releases, ensuring best practice alignment with ITIL principles and relevant internal processes (e.g. change control, impact assessment, release management, environment management) Planning and co-ordination of tech delivery aspects across multiple strategic 3rd party partners as well as internal support and business resources, to effectively deliver customer and technical/ security requirements with optimal resource utilisation Ensure deliveries meet required scope, timescales, budget, quality levels and KPIs Ensure high levels of customer satisfaction are delivered through effective and customer-focused IT services Consider and negotiate dependencies across all technical roadmaps to maximise delivery effectiveness Develop and apply robust governance approaches to ensure effective prioritisation of workload in line with functionality roadmaps, strategic objectives and business need Represent the technical voice within prioritisation decisions to ensure systems are optimally maintained Matrix manage supporting roles as required (e.g. Business Analyst, Architects and Testers across Enterprise and Assessment technology functions Provide technical leadership in the response for resolution of major incidents impacting Workday / i-Trent Accountable for environment management including cost forecasting and consumption Adopt a continuous improvement approach to ensure the ongoing integrity and optimisation of the systems Stepin cover for Service Owner role as required, to ensure no single point of failure in overall service provision Demonstrates commercial flexibility by undertaking other responsibilities which are of a commensurate level as business needs change Apply a robust risk management approach to ensure all risks are proactively identified and managed. This includes having auditable processes and documentation Ensure AQA is safe and legally compliant by applying AQA’s policies and other legislative/ regulatory requirements Need to know (to be successful in this role, you will need to know): Strong customer focus Ability to lead and operate in conjunction with 3rd party suppliers – operational supplier management Confident balancing strategic and operational demands to ensure optimal delivery outputs in line with strategic business objectives Excellent communicator, able to challenge, negotiate with and influence stakeholders of all levels to achieve desired outcomes Demonstrable experience supporting/ managing equivalent cloud-based software, notably Workday and preferably i-Trent Excellent technical fluency and understanding Be results focused, able to make pragmatic decisions and deliver at pace Good understanding of project methodologies and ITIL principles (certification desirable) Good understanding of change management / release cycle best practice Ability to define and deliver plans to achieve defined strategic organisational goals and customer needs Good understanding of data management principles and their application