Critical National Infrastructure Product Lead

Critical National Infrastructure Product Lead
Scale D
Permanent, full-time
Location: Leeds

Job Description

This role will lead the delivery and operations of our primary Critical National Infrastructure system (CNI), RTGS, and all related RTGS products, including Dev/Ops, Core Settlement engine and Data & Analytics. You will focus on two main areas; managing existing systems at the lowest level of operational risk through their different maintenance and upgrade cycles, and driving transformation required by changes in industry and associated improvements in Technology and ways of working. The role requires a leader who demonstrates a collaborative and inclusive style to guide colleagues and deliver on business outcomes. As a key part of our Business-as-Usual Leadership Team you'll be a champion and role model for Technology's values.

A day in the role

Your typical day might begin with a review of system health and incident reports, ensuring the Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) platform operates with resilience and precision.

Mid-morning you might have a 1:1 or team catch up with your team leaders to align on live operations, engineering, risk and change management.

You will then be ready for a senior leadership meeting where you will update on priorities and address any emerging risks.

As you are responsible for delivery of strategic change initiatives through your teams, you will spend some time reviewing board papers and delivery plans. You find time to give stakeholders critical updates on the key initiatives and mitigate any emerging risks to the delivery of the strategic initiatives.

If you are on-site, you can have lunch in the staff restaurant to do some networking with other senior leaders in the Technology Directorate.

After lunch you will attend the governance forum for the Future Roadmap, making use of the notes you made in the morning. You will be representing the Technology position and provide inputs and updates to the forum.

You decide to take a coffee down to your hot desk to review progress statistics for the mid-year performance review for the 70+ people that your direct reports manage for you. Your next stop is meet your stakeholders in the Payments Division to understand how the Future Roadmap is progressing from their point of view.

After that, you make a couple of notes in the team confluence page for transparent feedback.

If a significant incident has occurred, you attend the Major Incident Management (MIM) meeting. You are also a key contributor to the post-incident review process to ensure lessons are embedded into practice.

Towards the end of the day, you review the content that you have prepared for a meeting tomorrow with the RTGS External Auditors that will review our compliance to a variety of regulatory frameworks.

Role Requirements

RTGS settles on an average day £800 billion and is critical national infrastructure.

As a Senior member of the RTGS Technology team you will report to the RTGS Technology Service Owner. You are an integral part of the team running our dedicated critical RTGS payments platform.

You will be accountable for the performance and results of the area. You will have 5-7 direct reports, typically leading teams, responsible for the technicians who develop and maintain key components of the overall RTGS ecosystem. Your team will typically have 70-80 people which will be a combination of direct and matrixed staff. You will be an escalation point in and out of hours for your services. You will be responsible for talent management and career development for this area and for ensuring effective relationships are sustained across Technology and the business. This role will also provide annual leave cover for the RTGS Technology Service Owner, therefore attending meetings and decision making across the RTGS service.

You will play the lead role in:

• Product Ownership - Leading the performance of the area and its internal development team and partners by driving delivery to time, cost and quality. Act as the main point of contact for all technologies that fall within the scope, maintaining effective governance, operational excellence and highly available systems, whilst striving to deliver on the future vision.
• Technical Specialism - Demonstrating deep technical expertise and analytical excellence, providing specialist advice beyond boundaries. Supporting the team's technical experts to provide guidance on best practise and industry trends. Be accountable for the area's technical roadmaps, ensuring clear and effective processes are established for successful delivery.
• Leadership, Teamwork & Communication - Accountable for talent management and career development, and for ensuring effective relationships are sustained across wider teams, internal and external partners and suppliers
• Strategy and Technology Sourcing - Accountable for the area's product roadmap, you'll be ensuring clear and effective processes are in place to drive successful delivery. You will provide specialist advice beyond Divisional and Directorate boundaries, working closely with Architecture to lead the development, implementation and continual improvement of technologies and, more specifically, to produce and articulately communicate a clear view of your future strategy. You are accountable for the integration of wider industry standards and technologies into our way of working. You'll work to re-use, rationalise and reduce complexity.
• Sourcing and strategic Partner Management - Resolves the appropriate sourcing model(s) for the area, and the integration of wider industry best practices and technologies into ways of working. Leads will be responsible for the relationship with one or more of the Bank's strategic partners/suppliers in support of the wider RTGS team.
• Finance, Contracts & Commercial Capability - Responsible for ensuring robust contracts & commercial capability, striving for the best value for money by continually looking for improvements/efficiencies across both delivery and operational expenditure. . You'll support financial management of the area and drive strategic changes and optimisation to create these efficiencies
• Delivery Ownership - Responsible for strategic decision making over delivery, engagement models and methodologies to ensure success for our partners in the Bank. This includes ensuring alignment between supply and demand, ensuring the area has appropriate resources, skills, capabilities, and culture to deliver outstanding service. Supporting larger initiatives such as the Future Roadmap, you'll ensure that all large-scale change is delivered in a timely and cost-efficient way, aligning to ongoing operations and the future local strategy.
• Engineer enablement - Ensure effective management of both operations and delivery. Implement effective engagement processes, supporting toolsets, and defined metrics to track success. Ensure compliance with key audit, risk, and security policies and procedures throughout the area.
• Operations & Product Maintenance - Support strong operational performance through effective support processes. Engage with the Service Managers to enable continuous improvement, following the "Keep the Lights On" investment plan to address obsolescence and other technical risks. Where issues arise, you will and ensure remediation and/or mitigation plans are in place and delivered.

Minimum Criteria

We're looking for someone who has the following demonstrable experience in:

• The development and operations of mission critical financial services applications in a large-scale enterprise environment.
• Experience of working in an operational environment and making real time decisions
• Positive leadership style, able to drive employee engagement and motivation
• Implementing technology change and guiding and empowering a team through change
  Management of complex delivery programmes alongside operational support accountabilities.
  Balancing supply (resource capacity) against demand of varying sizes - service support, large scale investment projects, and small change requests
• Senior technical leadership, including shaping of, and delivery against, a strategic plan
• Strong end-users focus and an excellent ability to manage customer relationships.
• Communications, from senior director level briefings through to area-wide engagement events
• Developing and leading partner relationships and large development teams to drive optimum performance
• Leading strategic negotiations to successful outcomes
• Full systems/software development lifecycle, including successful delivery through agile methodologies, e.g. Scrum and SAFe
• Experienced in managing risk, compliance, audit and security obligations, including disaster recovery and business continuity procedures

Essential Criteria

We are interested in hearing from candidates who can:

• Demonstrable experience in, product engineering and project delivery, including selection of the appropriate methodology to deliver successfully through.
• Excellent IT, commercial, contract, partner management knowledge and experience.
• Be adept at balancing supply (resource capacity) against demand of varying sizes - service support, large scale investment projects, and small change requests.
• Previous experience in a senior technical leadership position, including shaping of, and delivery against, a strategic plan.
• Ability to take an inclusive approach to management, bringing out the best in and developing the talents of each individual given a variety of different backgrounds.
• Track record of leading and supporting Diversity and Inclusion initiatives and encouraging others to do the same.
• Direct experience of IT budgetary and financial management.
• Strong customer focus and an excellent ability to forge customer relationships, understand requirements and expectations, and translate these into technical outcomes with defined acceptance criteria.
• Previous experience in building and leading large development teams to drive optimum performance.
• Experience of leading strategic negotiations to successful outcomes.
• Awareness of relevant industry technologies to ensure a strategic vision and direction is maintained within the area, applying appropriate processes, technologies and resources to protect and improve solutions.
• Experienced in handling risk, compliance, audit and security obligations, including disaster recovery and business continuity procedures.

Desirable Criteria

It would also be beneficial, but not necessary, to have some of the following:

• Qualification in IT management or with equivalent industry experience.
• Significant commercial experience and/or relevant level qualification in vendor management/supply chain management
• Knowledge of ITIL and other industry wide initiatives that promote quality and process improvement
• Management of an Application Development, Application Support or Infrastructure Delivery area
• Management of third parties and outsourced services
• General knowledge of all areas of IT Application and Infrastructure and of IT Security

Our Approach to Inclusion

The Bank values diversity, equity and inclusion. We play a key role in maintaining monetary and financial stability, and to do that effectively, we believe we need a workforce that reflects the society we serve.

At the Bank of England, we want all colleagues to feel valued and respected, so we're working hard to build an inclusive culture which supports people from all backgrounds and communities to be at their best at work. We celebrate all forms of diversity, including (but not limited to) age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status. We believe that it's by drawing on different perspectives and experiences that we'll continue to make the best decisions for the public.

We welcome applications from individuals who work flexibly, including job shares and part time working patterns. We've also partnered with external organisations to support us in making adjustments for candidates and employees in the recruitment process where they're needed.

For most roles where work can be carried out at home, we aim for colleagues to spend half of their time in the office, with a minimum of 40% per month. Subject to that minimum requirement, individuals and managers should work together to find what works best for them, their team and stakeholders.

Finally, we're proud to be a member of the Disability Confident Scheme. If you wish to apply under this scheme, you should check the box in the 'Candidate Personal Information' under the 'Disability Confident Scheme' section of the application.

Salary and Benefits Information

We encourage flexible working, part time working and job share arrangements. Part time salary and benefits will be on a pro-rated basis as appropriate.

This role offers a competitive salary. In addition, we also offer a comprehensive benefits package as detailed below:

• Currently a non-contributory, career average pension giving you a guaranteed retirement benefit of 1/80th of your annual salary for every year worked. There is the option to increase your pension (to 1/65th) or decrease (to 1/105th) in exchange for salary through our flexible benefits programme each year. The Bank has the discretion to vary standard accrual rates and dial up and dial down rates at any time and to withdraw dial up and dial down options at any time.
• A discretionary performance award based on a current award pool.
• An 8% benefits allowance with the option to take as salary or purchase a wide range of flexible benefits.
• 26 days' annual leave with option to buy up to 12 additional days through flexible benefits.
• Private medical insurance and income protection.

National Security Vetting Process

Employment in this role will be subject to the National Security Vetting clearance process (and typically can take between 6 to 12 weeks post offer) and the passing of additional Bank security checks in accordance with the Bank policy. Further information regarding the vetting and security clearance requirements for the role will be provided to the successful applicant, and information about how the Bank processes personal data for these purposes, is set out in the Bank's Privacy Notice.

The Bank of England welcomes applications from all candidates, but as a UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) approved sponsor, we have a responsibility to comply with the Immigration Rules and guidance. As such, our ability to employ individuals who require sponsorship for immigration purposes is limited. The Bank cannot guarantee that you and / or the role you are applying for will be eligible for sponsorship and that any application made to UKVI will be successful. Eligibility will therefore be considered on a case by case basis.

The Application Process

Important: Please ensure that you complete the 'work history' section and answer ALL the application questions fully. All candidate applications are anonymised to ensure that our hiring managers will not be able to see your personal information, including your CV, when reviewing your application details at the screening stage. It's therefore really important that you fill out the work history and application form questions, as your answers will form a critical part of the initial selection process.

The assessment process will comprise of two interview stages.

This role closes on 10 August 2025.

Please apply online, ensuring that you complete your work history and answer ALL the application questions fully and in detail as your application will not be considered if all mandatory questions are not fully completed.