Head of BI Platforms and DataOps (SEL & SWL)NHS

Job summary

Candidates who are currently employed by SEL ICB and receive Inner London HCAS will retain their existing HCAS entitlement if appointed to a clustered SAE role, which will be offered through SEL London.This is on the basis that their office base will remain at the current, inner London, location.

Are you a technical leader who can turn data strategy into operational capability?

We are looking for an exceptional Head of BI Platforms & DataOps to provide operational and technical leadership for the capability supporting analytics across South East and South West London.This is a senior technical, operational and people leadership role for someone who can translate strategic priorities into effective technical services, lead multidisciplinary specialist teams and retain the technical credibility to challenge and assure Data Engineering, Data Science and analytical approaches.Working within the strategic direction of the Intelligence & Insights leadership team, you will be responsible for turning ambition into delivery--establishing the platforms, engineering standards, operating practices, automation and service disciplines required to provide reliable, scalable and efficient analytical services.You will lead a modern DataOps capability that enables analysts and Data Scientists to work faster, more consistently and with greater confidence in the data, platforms and analytical products they use.

Main duties of the job

The Opportunity

You will have the opportunity to shape and mature the DataOps capability supporting analytics across South East and South West London, bringing together Data Engineering, Data Science, platform engineering, automation, data quality, orchestration and MLOps into a coherent and increasingly integrated service.

Working across Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake and the wider Azure ecosystem, you will influence not only the technology we use, but how technical capability is organised, engineered and operationalised.

You will translate strategic priorities into practical technical and operational delivery, establishing effective standards, services and ways of working while ensuring that the DataOps capability responds to the needs of the wider analytical function.

Your remit will extend beyond the immediate DataOps team. Working with analytical teams and wider stakeholders, you will identify where better engineering, standardisation and automation can remove unnecessary manual effort, improve reliability and enable faster analytical delivery.

This is an opportunity to combine technical leadership, people leadership and service development to create a scalable DataOps capability with demonstrable impact across the wider analytical function.

Job description

We are looking for an accomplished technical leader who can operate comfortably across technology, people, operations and delivery while understanding how their area contributes to wider strategic priorities.

You will have sufficient technical depth to understand complex data architecture and engineering, interrogate proposed solutions and constructively challenge technical approaches while maintaining sight of the organisational and analytical problems that technology is intended to solve.

You will understand how data pipelines, orchestration, transformation logic, analytical data models, cloud platforms and software engineering disciplines combine to create reliable analytical services.

You will also understand what is required to move technical solutions from development into stable production operationincluding CI/CD, version control, automated testing, monitoring, change control, reusable code, common data models and MLOps.

Crucially, we are looking for someone who can provide genuine technical leadership rather than simply manage technical specialists.

You will be comfortable operating across organisational levelsleading specialist technical teams, working collaboratively with analytical and operational colleagues, and providing clear technical advice, assurance and recommendations to Deputy Directors and senior leaders.

You will be pragmatic, collaborative and inclusive, able to create an environment in which Data Engineering, Data Science, DataOps and Analytics operate as interconnected capabilities rather than isolated technical disciplines.

What makes the role different?

The defining proposition of this role is totranslate data strategy into operational capability.

You will take strategic priorities and turn them into effective technical services, engineering standards, delivery plans and operational practices that enable data and analytics to move efficiently and reliably from source to insight.

This means looking beyond individual technologies and technical products to understand how the overall service performs: where processes are unnecessarily manual, where technical debt constrains delivery, where engineering patterns should be standardised, where greater reuse is possible and where automation can release analytical capacity.

Success will not therefore be measured simply by the number of pipelines, models or technical products delivered. It will be demonstrated through measurable improvements in the performance and effectiveness of the analytical function.

What will you do?

• Provide operational and technical leadership of the DataOps capability translate strategic priorities into effective technical services, operating practices, standards and delivery plans, ensuring the capability is reliable, responsive and aligned with the needs of the wider analytical function.
• Provide technical leadership and assurance across architecture, engineering and analytical platforms challenge technical approaches, guide architectural decisions and ensure solutions are appropriately designed for performance, resilience, security, maintainability, scalability and reuse.
• Lead data orchestration, transformation and production engineering establish robust and consistent approaches to ingestion, ETL/ELT, transformation, analytical data modelling, deployment, monitoring and production operation.
• Drive automation and productivity across DataOps and the wider analytical function identify manual, repetitive and inefficient processes and use engineering, Data Science and automation to release capacity and accelerate analytical delivery.
• Lead the development and optimisation of Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake and Azure capabilities ensure platform architecture, performance, capacity, scalability, resilience and cost are actively managed and aligned with analytical requirements.
• Establish and assure modern DataOps, DevOps and MLOps disciplines embed version control, automated testing, CI/CD, monitoring, deployment pipelines, reusable code, change control and appropriate model deployment and monitoring practices..

Demonstrating measurable benefit

We want to see evidence that the DataOps capability is making the wider analytical function more effective.

Success could include reducing the time analysts spend acquiring, cleaning and transforming data; automating repetitive analytical and operational processes; reducing pipeline failures and manual interventions; improving data quality and timeliness; increasing reuse of curated datasets, transformation logic, models and code; reducing the time required to move analytical and Data Science products into production; improving cloud performance and cost-effectiveness; and releasing analytical capacity for higher-value work.

You will establish the measures required to demonstrate these benefits and use them to inform operational priorities, continuous improvement and recommendations to senior leadership.

The question we want the capability continually to ask is: How can technology, engineering and automation make our analytical function more effective?

Why join us?

You will lead a multidisciplinary technical capability operating at the intersection of Data Engineering, Data Science and Analytics across South East and South West London, supporting teams working with complex health and care data.

The role provides the opportunity to translate strategic priorities into practical technical capability while remaining sufficiently close to delivery to understand how architecture, engineering, platforms, automation and operational decisions affect analytical services.

You will work with senior leaders, technical specialists and analytical teams, giving you the opportunity to influence technical direction, improve service performance and establish stronger connections between technology investment and analytical value.

You will be joining at an important stage in the development of our data environment, with the opportunity to help establish a mature, integrated and measurable DataOps capability that enables better analytical delivery and decision-making.

If you are a technically credible leader who combines operational leadership, analytical judgement, strong people leadership and a determination to turn strategic priorities into measurable technical and analytical capability, we would like to hear from you.

• Lead, operationalise and continuously improve the DataOps function provide strategic, technical and operational leadership across Data Engineering, Data Science and DataOps, establishing a high-performing service that demonstrably improves the speed, quality and reliability of analytical delivery.
• Provide technical leadership for data architecture, engineering and analytical model development set and assure standards for data structures, transformation logic, common data models, code, analytical models and production solutions, ensuring they are robust, scalable, reusable and maintainable. The JD specifically places responsibility for architecture and operation of the platforms with this role.
• Lead data orchestration, transformation and production engineering design and optimise automated ETL/ELT pipelines covering ingestion, wrangling, cleansing, transformation, validation, modelling and delivery, reducing unnecessary manual intervention and improving the flow of data from source to insight.
• Drive automation and measurable productivity improvement across the wider Insights function proactively identify repetitive, inefficient or manually intensive processes that can be automated or redesigned, releasing analyst capacity for higher-value analytical work.
• Lead the architecture, operation and optimisation of Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake and associated cloud technologies ensuring platforms are secure, performant, resilient, appropriately governed and cost-effective, including active management of platform capacity and consumption. This reflects the JD's explicit responsibility for both platforms, including budget, resource and performance management.
• Establish mature DataOps, DevOps and MLOps practices implement CI/CD, version control, automated testing, monitoring, deployment and change-control processes, and create the environments necessary to move Data Science and Machine Learning models reliably from experimentation into production.

Please see job description for full detail of main responsibilities.

About us

In 2025, the boards of NHS South East London ICB and NHS South West London ICB entered into a clustering arrangement, meaning that we share a chair, chief executive officer and an executive team, but we remain as separate, statutory organisations.

This also means that the ICBs will share some teams, who will be working across both organisations. Some teams will also be working across both geographical areas and integrated care systems.

ICBs are also changing, with a clear focus on strategic commissioning and delivering neighbourhood working.

This is an exciting time to work within our ICBs. We currently have the opportunity both to shape the future of our clustered organisations, and to be part of a radical transformation of care for the local people and communities across south London.

And while our two ICBs are different in some ways, improving lives for the people we serve is at the core of what we are both here to do.

Please note as you can only be employed by one ICB, this job description refers to 'the 'ICB', but your role may cover both ICB organisations, and / or geographical areas.

Equality and Diversity

The ICB is committed to providing services and employment to a community with an increasing variety of backgrounds. To do this effectively it is essential that we promote equality and embrace diversity and treat everyone with dignity and respect. This includes a focus on building a just culture.