Assistant Director of IT (Business Systems)

Manchester

Competitive Salary

1503

Information Systems and Digital Services is central to where we are going as a university and what sort of experience we offer to both our professional colleagues and our students. The work we do impacts significantly on both the personal and learning experience of those who study here. We are committed to developing and maintaining highly usable, fast, flexible and personalised Information Systems services that reflect the changing needs of our growing university.

Our Information Systems and Digital Services division manages all aspects of our information, communication, learning and research technologies and shapes our technical strategy and roadmap. Its decisions are central to our continued success – giving you an extremely high profile and a pivotal role to play.

About the role

Crucially, you will collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to deliver our Information Systems Strategy and ensure that our business applications (student management systems, ERP, Web and RPA) deliver value and perform effectively throughout their lifecycle. You’ll play a particularly key role in supporting the implementation of our new Student Management System, Unit4, and ensuring it is effectively integrated with other key University Systems whilst embedding the discipline of Release Management. We will look to you to provide inspiring leadership to our Business Systems team and managerial expertise, as you define methodologies and new operating models across our Web, HR, Finance and Payroll systems, as well as the technical aspects of the Student Transformation Programme. 

Thought leadership will be required on augmented and automated technologies and you will lead by example in the use of collaborative technologies. You will carefully align resources to requirements, manage relationships with major vendors and service providers, and actively implement application lifecycle management status reporting, metrics and benchmarks. Furthermore, you will define new initiatives to realise our Information Systems Strategy whilst sponsoring projects to deliver significantly enhanced systems — giving you an enormous impact on everything we do.

About You

Your leadership style and experience will demonstrate your ability to succeed whilst building trust and respect from your peers and your team. Commercially astute and capable of defining the business benefits of technology investments, you will be a capable and experienced Head of Application Development, Maintenance and Support with a very strategic mind-set. Naturally, you will be experienced in procuring, supporting and developing Enterprise-wide systems in Finance, HR and/or Student Services, Web Development and emerging technologies. 

You will be able to embed a strong can do attitude and customer service culture within your team. At the same time, controlling budgets, leading meetings and generating insightful reports should be second nature to you, and you will bring broad awareness of higher education, IT Service Management and its IT challenges. Finally, you will be skilled in delivering profound change and influencing the most senior stakeholders, whilst communicating a clear and persuasive vision to diverse audiences via the full media mix.

Closing date: 16 August 2019

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