Contract Tech Ops Lead

Technical Ops Lead Location: Some travel to Edinburgh We help organisations navigate the future of technology, combining human expertise, emerging tech and AI to deliver better outcomes, faster. Since 2014, we’ve worked side-by-side with clients to solve complex challenges, build high-performing teams, and create lasting capability. About you: You care deeply about producing high-quality work that delivers real value You’re comfortable navigating ambiguity and solving complex problems collaboratively You bring strong expertise in your craft, alongside a willingness to keep learning You communicate clearly and build trust quickly with clients and teammates You’re pragmatic, adaptable and outcome-focused You value low-ego collaboration and enjoy working as part of multidisciplinary teams What you’ll bring to the table: Key responsibilities Establish and shape the function: Working with the Group Head of Technology Operations design and stand up the technology operations operating model, including its scope, charter, interfaces with engineering teams, and ways of working as an enabling and platform style function rather than a gatekeeper. Apply ITIL 4 in a light touch, value led way, using the guiding principles (start where you are, progress iteratively with feedback, keep it simple and practical, optimise and automate) to introduce only the practices that genuinely add value. Build trust and credibility with engineering leaders by aligning to DevOps culture and team ownership, and by explicitly avoiding the reintroduction of heavyweight, ticket driven service management. Modernise change management (CI/CD and SRE aligned) Reframe change management as change enablement: lightweight automated, peer reviewed change aligned to CI/CD pipelines, using automated testing gates, policy as code, and progressive delivery in place of manual approvals and traditional change advisory boards where appropriate. Identify, establish, baseline, and track change SLOs and KPIs, drawing on DORA metrics (deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate, and time to restore service) and SRE constructs (SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets). Use this data to drive continual improvement of delivery flow and stability across teams, and to give leadership an honest, comparable view of change performance Group wide. Make incident management fit for purpose Establish proportionate, learning oriented incident management across the Group that respects team level ownership of run and fix, while providing clear coordination for major and cross team incidents. Build on existing Incident Management process developed for Engineering and develop the scope of processes to include all other technology incident events (for example cyber security events, power outages, EUC incidents etc.) Define severity levels, escalation paths, communications, and on call expectations consistent with SRE practice. Embed blameless post incident reviews, and track time to restore, recurrence, and follow up actions so that learning is captured and acted on rather than apportioning blame. Provide light touch service management Introduce proportionate service management disciplines where they add value, such as clarity of service ownership, a usable service catalogue, sensible request handling, and knowledge management. Keep these deliberately lightweight and continually challenge whether each practice is earning its place. Reporting, leadership, and stakeholder management Provide dashboards and KPIs that give leadership clear visibility of operational health, change performance, incident trends, and vendor performance. Work across Group brands and markets, building relationships with engineering, product, security, and commercial stakeholders. Act as a thoughtful advocate for proportionate operations, helping the organisation mature without slowing it down. Essential skills and experience Strong, demonstrable ITIL 4 practitioner experience, with a relevant certification (for example ITIL 4 Managing Professional or relevant practice modules), and a clear track record of applying ITIL pragmatically rather than dogmatically. Hands on experience modernising change and incident practices within a CI/CD, DevOps, or SRE environment. Practical familiarity with DORA metrics, with SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets, and with observability concepts and tooling. Experience building or centralising IT vendor and supplier management, including contracts, SLAs, performance reviews, and supplier risk. Experience standing up, or significantly reshaping, a technology operations or service operations function. Strong stakeholder management, ideally within a multi entity or multi market group. A pragmatic, value led mindset, with a genuine appreciation of engineering team autonomy and the “build it, run it, fix it” model. Awareness of Team Topologies and platform engineering thinking. Equal Opportunities Statement Diversity and inclusion are hugely important to us, and we’re committed to providing equal opportunities for all. We’re actively recruiting for a diverse and inclusive workforce so want to ensure we do everything we can to support your application. We want you to feel safe and empowered to let us know if you need any adjustments to be made to your application or interview process, so please speak to our recruitment team. AI Statement We champion tech that helps people work smarter, but we want to get to know you! If you use AI to assist with your application or interview prep, please ensure all information submitted remains an accurate, truthful representation of your personal achievements and capabilities rather than generating false or misleading information. We may reject applications where AI is used inappropriately at any stage of the recruitment process.