Head of People Technology Platforms & Services

Job Type: Permanent

Location: Hybrid, aligned to one of our core locations of London, Birmingham or Edinburgh

Flexible working: All roles are open to part-time, job-share and other types of flexibility. We will discuss what is important to you and balancing this with business requirements during the recruitment process. You can read more about flexible working here.

Salary & Benefits: £80,000-£100,000 with an indicative bonus range of 30% -60%, private medical cover, 38 days annual leave, excellent pension, 12x salary life assurance, career breaks, income protection, 3x volunteering days and much more.

Closing Date: 03/11/2027

Who are we?

We’re Standard Life, a retirement specialist focused entirely on retirement savings and income. We champion the belief that everyone’s journey to and through retirement can be better, and for more than 200 years, we’ve been helping our customers plan and prepare for their financial futures.
Life today is increasingly complicated, uncertain and unpredictable. People move through different careers, face unexpected moments and navigate important choices. We offer our colleagues flexibility, trust and benefits that work for whatever life brings. In return we expect curiosity, connection, accountability and high standards. We make room for what matters - so you can bring your best, every day.

The role

Key role that will be accountable for the stability, resilience, security, controls and service performance of the People Technology platforms and ecosystem, including Oracle HCM including payroll-critical services, integrations, interfaces, access security and the day to day “Run” managed service provider. This role will report to the Head of People Technology & Digital excellence and be part of their leadership team to drive colleague experience and measurable business outcomes through digital tooling alongside build sustainable internal capability while using enterprise teams, managed services and specialist partners deliberately.

This role provides proactive platform stewardship that protects colleague experience and business outcomes, continuing to evolve the service from reactive issue resolution towards root-cause reduction, preventative monitoring, lifecycle planning, technical integrity and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the lifecycle, health and technical integrity of the People Technology platform ecosystem, including Oracle HCM, payroll-critical services, integrations, security and supporting components.
• Accountable for service availability, performance, operational resilience and incident and problem management, including major incident recovery and root-cause remediation.

• Ensure appropriate continuity and recovery arrangements for payroll-critical and other high-risk services are maintained and tested.

• Own the day-to-day managed service, holding partners accountable for service performance, continuous improvement, automation, technical standards and knowledge transfer.

• Own controls for configuration, integrations, access, privileged activity, security roles and audit-sensitive change.

• Govern production change, releases, patches, regression assurance and operational readiness, ensuring critical services remain stable and recoverable.
• Establish preventative monitoring and drive reduction in recurring defects, manual intervention, technical debt and operational disruption.
• Maintain clear visibility of platform architecture, health, vendor roadmaps and data standards, supporting scalability and long-term sustainability.
• Partner with Product & Engineering, People Operations, Payroll, Reward, Analytics, IT, Finance, Risk and Audit to balance delivery pace with stability, security and control.
• Lead and develop the Platform team, building deep functional and technical capability and reducing key-person and third-party dependencys

What we are looking for

• Significant leadership experience across enterprise HR platforms, HR technology services or similarly critical business applications, with deep Oracle Cloud HCM or equivalent HCM expertise.
• Proven accountability for production services, operational resilience, incidents, releases, controls, technical debt and payroll-critical dependencies, and customer centricy at the heart of delivery.
• Strong experience managing outsourced technology services and strategic partners, driving performance, continuous improvement and knowledge transfer.
• Strong understanding of enterprise platform architecture, integrations, APIs, data, identity and access security, with experience operating in regulated or highly controlled environments.
• Strong service-management, analytical and root-cause disciplines, with the judgement to balance stability, risk, pace, cost and business value.
• A proactive and credible leader who builds high-performing teams and strong partnerships across Product, Operations, Technology and control functions.
• Outcome-focused and improvement-led, protecting critical services while enabling well-controlled innovation and delivering better colleague and business outcomes.

We want to hire the whole version of you.
We are committed to ensuring that everyone feels accepted and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. If your experience looks different from what we’ve advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we’d love to hear from you. If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best.
We’re reviewing applications as they come in and may close this role before the closing date, so apply early to avoid missing out.

Find out more about working at Standard Life
• Guide for Candidates: standardlifeplc.pagetiger.com/guideforcandidates
• Find or get answers from our colleagues: www.standardlifeplc.com/careers/talk-to-us