Develop and maintain quality procedures and engineering standards; oversee testing, , certification of technology processes and quality controls for products and platforms.
Project and Delivery Management
Manage delivery of major engineering programmes and take personal accountability for a small number of business-critical projects.
Digital Vision and Strategy Execution
Collaborate on the digital roadmap and lead execution of workflows, processes and enablers that allow new applications, products and services to be delivered quickly while maintaining legacy applications and IT operations at optimal levels.
Digital Talent Development
Execute the strategy to grow engineering and digital talent through development plans, coaching, mentoring and improved employee experience.
Data-Driven Product and Service Improvement
Create the capability to proactively identify opportunities to improve digital products, services and user experiences over the long term.
Current and Target-State Analysis
Document complex current-state and target-state processes and define the changes required to migrate to the target capability.
Translate function strategy into clear actions for teams; explain the link to organisational mission, vision and values; and motivate people to deliver local business goals.
Set objectives for direct reports, manage performance, hold individuals accountable and take corrective action where required to achieve annual business objectives.
Define the business impact of security incidents and drive recommendations to prevent recurrence, in partnership with security and risk stakeholders.
Manage departmental budget plans and ensure delivery and modernisation choices are cost-conscious and value-led.
Organisational Capability Building
Assess capability gaps, prioritise development activity, implement formal development frameworks and strengthen the engineering talent pool.
Application Software Development
Oversee complex existing and new applications by identifying areas for modification and improvement, and ensuring new applications meet customer and business requirements.
Application Software Roadmap
Define and maintain the roadmap for complex application software development and prioritise engineering work in line with business needs.
Information and Business Advice
Provide authoritative specialist advice to senior managers to support policy implementation, projects and change initiatives.
AI-Augmented Engineering and Developer Productivity
Drive organisation-wide adoption of AI-assisted development tools (coding assistants, agents, automated testing and code review) across the software development lifecycle, and track their impact on delivery speed, quality and engineering capacity.
Platform Engineering and Internal Developer Platform
Build and scale a self-service internal developer platform with golden paths, reusable components and automated guardrails, reducing cognitive load on engineering teams and accelerating time to production.
AI, Model and Data Governance
Partner with risk, compliance and data stakeholders to embed responsible AI practices, model risk management and data governance controls into engineering delivery, ensuring AI and automation capabilities move from pilot to production safely and with appropriate oversight.
Engineering Metrics and Continuous Improvement
Establish and report on delivery and reliability metrics (for example DORA metrics and SLOs/error budgets) to drive a culture of continuous improvement and evidence-based decision-making.
Chapter and Sub-Chapter Management
The Head of Engineering will establish and lead a Chapter operating model, grouping engineers by discipline (including Software Engineering, Data Engineering, Platform and DevOps, Quality Engineering and SRE, Security Engineering, and AI/ML) across product squads and delivery teams. Each Chapter will be led by a Chapter Lead accountable for technical standards, hiring quality, career progression and skills development within their discipline, working alongside Squad and Product Leads who direct day-to-day delivery priorities.
The Head of Engineering is accountable for the overall health and capability of the Chapter structure, including maintaining competency frameworks and career ladders for each discipline, identifying and closing skills gaps through targeted hiring, upskilling or redeployment, and monitoring chapter-level health indicators such as engagement, attrition, internal mobility and time-to-competency for new joiners. In an AI-native engineering organisation, each Chapter Lead will also be accountable for driving the adoption of AI-assisted tools and practices within their discipline and for measuring the resulting impact on delivery speed, quality and engineering capacity, ensuring that technical excellence and AI-augmented ways of working are embedded consistently across the engineering function rather than left to vary by team.