Applications Manager (General)

Salary: Circa £55,000 per annum with some flexibility for the right candidate

Location: Knowsley, Prescot, Liverpool L34 9ET

Contract: Permanent, Full-Time

Approximate re-opening of head office September 2026.

Are you passionate about making a difference in the housing sector? If you enjoy influencing how digital estates support the business, ensuring systems are effective, user‑centred and consistently improving to meet organisational needs, this is the role for you.

The general Applications Manager will manage the entire lifecycle of varied applications for diverse, multi-vendor IT systems, acting as the bridge between IT teams and stakeholders to ensure applications are reliable, secure and cost-effective.

About the role:

The way we use applications and digital services is evolving. Cobalt has fully transitioned to a modern, cloud‑based technology estate, giving us the foundations to deliver our ambitious Corporate Plan and Digital Strategy. With no legacy infrastructure or technical debt, we now operate within a clean, integrated digital ecosystem where applications, data, identity and security work seamlessly together.

The Applications Manager is responsible for the end-to-end ownership and continuous improvement of Cobalt’s application portfolio, ensuring systems are secure, well governed, cost effective and deliver real value to the organisation. Acting as a Product Owner rather than a super user, the role balances user experience, operational resilience, supplier performance, risk and compliance. The post holder leads application roadmaps, manages change and testing, and holds suppliers accountable for service quality and value for money.

You’ll work side‑by‑side with operational teams, building trusted relationships and shaping applications around real business needs rather than operating as a traditional IT “back office”. Collaboration, visibility, and influence are key - you’ll be expected to face into the organisation, speak the language of the business, and act as a genuine partner in improving how services are delivered, not just the systems that support them.

Key Responsibilities:

• With peer Applications Manager (Microsoft), own and manage Cobalt’s core business applications and SaaS platforms as well as integrations, ensuring reliability, scalability, and consistency.
• Lead application roadmaps, upgrades, and continuous improvement.
• Work closely with digital, data, and security colleagues to deliver joined‑up outcomes.
• Champion application usability, adoption, and value across the organisation.

The role has a primary focus on Cobalt’s critical business systems including Total Mobile (Field Service Management), Xledger (Finance), as well as (working with our other Applications Manager) our Housing Management System MIS Active H, and optimisation of the wider M365 toolset. The post‑holder shares responsibility for standards, governance and resilience across the wider application estate, contributing to a modern, product‑led approach to applications management across the organisation.

For the full list of responsibilities and the person specification, please review the recruitment pack linked below.

What We’re Looking For:

We are seeking people who can bring creative thinking, and fully support our vision, values and commitment to our customers. We are particularly interested in people with experience working in housing associations who are looking to join an organisation ready to embark upon an exciting period of transformation and growth but also welcome those who can bring new ways of working and thinking from out of sector aligned to the right technical and people-skills.

You will be working in a new and dynamic team; we invest heavily in our people, so once in the role you can expect to have access to a range of innovative and exciting opportunities to develop yourself personally and professionally. Successful applicants will live within a commutable distance as office attendance is required on a flexible, hybrid arrangement.