Head of Digital

As a dynamic church and one of the UK's largest charities, The Salvation Army is dedicated to transforming lives across the UK and Ireland. Having achieved significant digital growth over the past couple of years, the organisation is seeking a visionary digital leader to continue to spearhead its digital evolution and further implement an ambitious digital roadmap during the permanent postholder's maternity leave. This is not a caretaker role; the aim over the coming year is to maintain digital momentum and continue to build on excellent progress, and as such, the role will be pivotal in ensuring the organisation remains at the forefront of digital innovation, enhancing mission delivery and generating vital income.

The role is one of the most exciting digital opportunities in the sector; as Head of Digital you'll lead a team working across digital marketing and fundraising, communication and content, projects and infrastructure, insight, UX, skills, innovation and AI. A busy role with stakeholder engagement at its core, you'll work with a diverse internal stakeholder group to harness support and energy for the organisation's ongoing digital transformation.

Contract: One-year fixed term maternity cover contract

Salary: £68,221 London hybrid salary (candidates required to spend a minimum of 40% of each month in London HQ) or £60,912 for home based or less than 40% time in London

Location: Ideally hybrid between home and London office with a minimum of two days per week (or 40% of month) in the office, with less time in office also considered

Hours: Full-time, 35 hours per week with flexible working options fully supported, including condensed hours and job sharing

Closing date for applications: Friday 30th May

Interviews: First stage interviews will be held remotely on the 11th and 12th June with second round held in person at London HQ on 19th June

Core responsibilities within your role will be to:

• Lead on the implementation of the new digital strategy, to support the delivery of mission priorities across the organisation
• Influence senior leaders to both develop in their confidence digital and champion digital transformation across the territory
• Lead and manage the Digital team ensuring that: objectives are successfully delivered, high performing team culture is embedded, and that employee wellbeing is at the top of your agenda
• Be responsible for development and oversight of the AI roadmap for the organisation, including an AI policy and implementation of AI in an ethical framework across the territory, in collaboration with IT and other business partners
• Work within the culture of The Salvation Army as a church and as a charity in both a responsive and opportunistic way, successfully working collaboratively with internal stakeholders, responding to the external environment and offering digital advice and solutions
• Be the strategic lead on the effective selection and use of digital channels for the organisation, orchestrating execution of campaigns and communications through digital to meet objectives
• Ensure product ownership and governance of key digital platforms to ensure continuous development, great UX and high availability by overseeing agencies, suppliers, platform providers to ensure objectives are met efficiently
• Collaborate with fundraising to enable them to meet targets through digital channels to deliver income growth and to meet digital specific income targets
• Be responsible for managing the Digital budget, allocating cost centres across digital activity including setting, monitoring, forecasting, and providing financial reporting as required
• Lead a culture of systematic learning and improvement; drive the use of digital analysis tools, data, results and the deployment of this in all aspects of digital development and lead on overarching programme to upskill the organisation on digital and AI, including bringing senior leaders on board
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge on current digital and charity (digital) trends, technology and best practice through networking, attending conferences and horizon scanning
• Lead and be accountable for ensuring that all relevant digital regulatory, ethical and compliance requirements are met

We would love to hear from you if you have the following skills and experience:

• Extensive and demonstrable experience of leading and managing digital strategy at a senior level within a complex organisation
• Experience of developing and leading a digital team and the successful implementation of major digital change, transformation and AI
• A demonstrable passion for digital, with subject matter expertise and up to date knowledge of the charity digital market, current trends in the digital space and best practice platforms and techniques across digital communications, fundraising, AI, marketing and infrastructure
• Proven excellent leadership skills with the ability to motivate employees and teams, identify and nurture talent and manage performance effectively to deliver team as well as organisational objectives
• Proven experience of leading multiple cross functional workstreams with a typical 5-10-year time horizon, with proven project management skills and the ability to maximise the impact of available resources
• Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence at senior level and inspire, engage, build relationships and negotiate between internal and external stakeholders with a high level of diplomacy
• Proven experience of leveraging digital agencies or in house teams for digital channels such as website, email systems, digital advertising
• A strong understanding and experience of implementing relevant regulatory and compliance requirements related to digital and AI
• The ability and willingness to work within and be empathic with the Christian ethos and values of The Salvation Army Mission

If you're interested in hearing more about this opportunity, please send your CV to Alice at Charity People in the first instance.