Head of Systems & Data Engineering - SAP in Westminster

Location: London, Cardiff, Birmingham. This is a hybrid role and the successful candidate will balance office working with home working 1‐2 days in the office per week.

Proposed Salary Range: £110,000‐£125,000, depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience.

Purpose of the Role: This exciting role sits in the BBC's Technology & Media Operations group, which delivers the technology requirements of the BBC across broadcast, enterprise, and digital to the strategy set by the business. Reporting into the Director of Corporate Systems, the role will lead the design, development, and operation of enterprise‐grade data reporting and analytics platforms and engineering solutions with a primary focus on SAP technologies ensuring scalability, security, and performance across complex global landscapes.

Key Responsibilities and Impact:

• Strategic Leadership: Define and execute the HR and Finance data platforms and engineering strategy to enable the delivery of data warehousing, analytics and reporting technologies aligned to business objectives. Partner with domain Heads of Data and Data Custodians in technology alongside Data & security Architecture teams to deliver data architecture and integration to enable data modelling, analytics and reporting aligned to business strategy. Champion and deliver best practices for data governance, quality, and compliance.
• Technical Ownership: Oversee design and implementation of data pipelines, ETL/ELT processes, data medallion architecture and ingestion and integration frameworks for SAP systems (SAP ECC, SAP HCM, SuccessFactors, Concur, S/4HANA, BW, BPC, SAP Data Services, SAP BTP incl Datasphere and BDC and other non‐SAP data warehouses and platforms). Ensure robust data models and architecture for transactional and analytical workloads. Optimize performance with architecture colleagues of large‐scale data flows and storage solutions.
• Operational Excellence: Manage day‐to‐day operations of data engineering teams, ensuring SLAs and KPIs are met. Implement monitoring, alerting, and incident management for data pipelines. Drive automation and continuous improvement in data output operations.
• Collaboration & Stakeholder Management: Partner with other Data Architects and Engineers across the group, Finance, HR, and Technology teams to deliver integrated solutions. Work closely with SAP Basis, Application, and Analytics teams for seamless data flow. Work closely with Data Architecture and Business Heads of Data to design and deliver outcomes aligned to business goals. Engage with vendors and 3rd‐party AMS partners for technology delivery, upgrades and support.
• Innovation & Future Readiness: Explore and deliver emerging technologies (cloud‐native SAP solutions, AI/ML integration, data lakehouse architectures, AWS data platforms). Lead proof‐of‐concepts for advanced data engineering capabilities.

Qualifications and Experience:

• Deep knowledge of SAP data platform technologies (incl SAP BW, Datasphere, SAP BDC, SAP BPC) and high‐volume, mission‐critical data pipelines within SAP ecosystems and onwards to other enterprise data platforms.
• Strong experience in ETL/ELT tools, data modelling, and integration patterns.
• Proven experience leading large data analytics engineering teams in complex environments.
• Ability to influence peers and senior stakeholders and drive cross‐functional collaboration.
• Understanding of data security, compliance (GDPR), and audit requirements.

Desired Criteria:

• Relevant SAP certifications (SAP BW, SAP Data Services, SAP ECC, SAP HANA).
• Experience in global organisations.
• Strategic thinker with hands‐on technical depth.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Strong problem‐solving and decision‐making ability under pressure.
• HR and Finance data, process and technology domain knowledge.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement: We welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio‐economic background, religion and/or belief. We are committed to diversity, inclusion and belonging.