Head of Delivery
Job summary
The 10 Year Health Plan delivers one of the most seismic shifts in the history of the health service. It sets out how the NHS must change to create a truly modern health service, designed to meet the needs of our changing population. To achieve these ambitions, we must transform, secure, run and maintain the systems and platforms that support the Data & Analytics team and wider Health and Social Care system. These systems and platforms enable end users across NHS and wider organisations to collect, analyse, present and distribute data.The Head of Delivery for Platform Modernisation is responsible for driving a multi year transformation of the organisation's core technology platforms. At its heart it seeks to radically reduce our cost to serve but also provides opportunities to enhance our data service offerings as data is available in a unified environment and our people have the skills and tools needed to deliver advanced analytics and insights to help drive forward our broader vision on healthcare innovation.The Head of Delivery leads a portfolio of projects focussed on simplification of legacy estates, reduction of operational cost, uplift of cyber security posture, and progression towards target state architecture, directly and indirectly via matrix management. The postholder will shape strategy, oversee delivery, and ensure benefits are realised across cost, risk, resilience, and long term capability.
Main duties of the job
Duties:
Platform Strategy: Support the Data Platforms leadership team in defining and maintaining the platform modernisation roadmap, aligned to enterprise architecture, business priorities, and transformation goals.Legacy Simplification: Lead assessment, right-sizing, and decommissioning of legacy platforms to reduce estate size.Cost Reduction: Deliver savings through operational efficiencies, R&M optimisation, licence rationalisation, and targeted decommissioning.Cyber Risk Reduction: Oversee governance, audit visibility, and remediation activity to reduce high-risk vulnerabilities across critical platforms.Target Architecture: Drive adoption of target and interim architecture patterns, ensuring scalable, modern engineering practices.Stakeholder Leadership: Engage senior business, security, finance, and engineering stakeholders to maintain alignment, transparency, and shared ownership.Benefits Management: Track, report, and realise financial, operational, and risk-based benefits, reinvesting savings into transformation initiatives (Data Flows, Events, Rationalisation, RIPT).Delivery Oversight: Lead cross-functional teams, manage risks, and ensure delivery within budget and governance requirements.Vendor Management: Manage technology suppliers to ensure value, compliance, and alignment with modernisation objectives.Technical Solutions: Co-create and challenge technical solutions from a delivery perspective.
About us
NHS England has a wide range of statutory functions, responsibilities and regulatory powers. These are focused on supporting the wider NHS to deliver high quality care, as well as doing those things that are best done once for the whole NHS.
Our staff bring expertise across clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial specialisms -- enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.
In March 2025, the Government announced that NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the department.
If you currently work within the NHS and if successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR).This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the process.
Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in our offices.
Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.
We cannot offer visa sponsorship for any vacancies.
Job description
Job responsibilities
You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, and person specification in the attached Job Description and Assignment Briefs. Please ensure your supporting statement includes demonstratable evidence and specific examples on how you meet the criteria for each of the key skills specified. This will be used in both the shortlisting and interview processes.
Person Specification
Qualifications
- Educated to master's level or equivalent qualification/delivery experience.
- Qualifications or equivalent experience demonstrating proficiency in delivery or IT project & programme management e.g. Managing Successful Programmes, or equivalent experience in programme management.
Knowledge
- Advanced knowledge of the political and cultural aspects of delivering change across complex organisations.
- Extensive expert knowledge of agile and lean methods, approaches, practices, and techniques and experience in building team capability in agile and lean practice - including the use of appropriate workflow tools (e.g. JIRA/ MS Project)
Skills
- Proven ability and supporting experience of successfully delivering a portfolio of digital products and services within a large complex environment and across organisational boundaries involving multi-disciplinary teams.
- Experience of effective contract management processes including: contract design, management & formal review of delivery against objectives, performance, and budget, issue management/ resolution and escalation where appropriate.
- Experience of co-creating or challenging technical designs and solutions; and evaluating them from a delivery perspective.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Employer details
Employer name
NHS England
Address
National
7-8 Wellington Place, Leeds or 10 South Colonnade London
Leeds/London
LS1 4AP
United Kingdom
Employer's website
https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/working-for/