Head of Platforms

Location : Birmingham, Leeds, London

This role will require to attend our Leeds office for 1 day per week.

Hybrid Working

THE DIVISION

The IT Division brings together Portfolio & Project Management, Architecture & Data, Security, Platforms and Operations to define, deliver, support and continuously improve technology services across the firm. The division plays a critical role in enabling the firm’s strategic objectives, ensuring that technology is secure, reliable, scalable and aligned to business need.

THE ROLE

Reporting to the Director of Technology and Innovation, the Head of Platforms is a new senior leadership role responsible for the strategic direction, ownership and lifecycle management of the firm’s core technology platforms and services, including DMS, CMS and the Microsoft environment.

Working with IT peers, suppliers and business stakeholders, the role ensures platform services are managed holistically and provides leadership across platform engineering, software development, testing and AI-related capability. As a newly created role, it will help shape the team structure, capability and operating model needed to support the platform estate effectively.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Platform Strategy & Ownership

• Define and maintain platform strategy, standards, lifecycle plans and roadmaps for core platforms including DMS, CMS, Microsoft SharePoint and Power Platform, ensuring alignment with architecture, data, security and wider strategy.

• Own the platform estate, identifying priorities for optimisation, consolidation, modernisation, value realisation, risk and technical debt.

• Establish governance, including development and testing standards, code storage, version control, release disciplines and documentation.

• Work with Operations and Security to improve lifecycle management and documentation, resilience, performance, patching, configuration control, backup, recovery and platform health.

Platform Delivery, Change & Improvement

• Ensure platform changes are integrated, supportable and aligned to enterprise standards throughout the SDLC.
• Lead software development and testing capability, embedding quality practices and standards.
• Support assessment, adoption and governance of AI-related platforms, tooling and capabilities.

Supplier & Stakeholder Management

• Work with stakeholders, IT leadership and service teams to understand priorities, shape roadmaps and communicate direction, threats and opportunities.
• Maintain relationships with key suppliers and partners, working with Operations to drive service performance.

Leadership & Continuous Improvement

• Build and mature platform capability, including team structure, service ownership, governance, tooling, automation and operational documentation.
• Lead and develop platform, development, testing and AI-related teams

SKILL SET

Experience & Leadership

• Senior platforms or enterprise technology leadership experience, ideally in legal or professional services.
• Track record of owning platform strategy, service improvement, lifecycle management and roadmap delivery.
• Experience leading software development, both on-shore and off-shore, testing and AI-related teams

Platforms & Technical Expertise

• Strong understanding of enterprise legal platforms, AI, cloud and SaaS environments and how they are governed and supported at scale.
• Experience with Microsoft SharePoint, Power Platform, Microsoft 365, Azure and Microsoft Entra, with a focus on standardisation and improved user experience.
• Strong understanding of software engineering lifecycle disciplines, including source control, testing, release controls and documentation.

Governance, Risk & Control

• Good understanding of security, risk, resilience and compliance considerations relevant to platform ownership.
• Practical experience working within ISO 27001 and CyberEssentials+ aligned environments.
• Experience defining code governance, repository controls, engineering standards and release disciplines.

Communication & Influence

• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to explain complex matters clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Credibility to influence senior stakeholders, challenge constructively and drive alignment.

Personal Attributes

• Strategic, structured, pragmatic and outcome-focused.
• Collaborative, credible and committed to continuous improvement.

Capsticks is an inclusive employer

At Capsticks we value diversity and we are committed to creating an inclusive and supportive working environment where everyone is able to be themselves and reach their full potential. Capsticks is committed to providing equal opportunities for all and therefore we welcome the unique contributions that you can bring in terms of your education, background, culture, ethnicity, race, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, neurodiversity, religion and beliefs.

We will make reasonable adjustments to our application and interview process to ensure that you have the best chance of success. We understand that there's not a "one size fits all" approach to adjustments so our team will work with you individually to understand more about your requirements. If you have any questions please contact our Recruitment team on: ([email protected])