Head of IT Platforms in London

Overview

Senior technology leadership role responsible for the strategy, governance, performance, and continuous improvement of a core insurance platform ecosystem, including policy administration systems, digital product platforms, integrations, and data flows. Accountable for ensuring platform resilience, security, regulatory compliance, supplier performance, and alignment with business objectives. Leads a specialist team covering platforms, insurance products, delivery, and change management, acting as the primary technology partner to the business for platform transformation, product enablement, and lifecycle management.

Key Responsibilities

• Platform Ownership & Operations
  • Own platform availability, performance, resilience, and support across core insurance systems and integrations.
  • Oversee platform roadmaps, technical debt, lifecycle management, and service improvement initiatives.
  • Ensure effective incident management, root-cause analysis, release governance, and operational documentation.
  • Maintain reliable platform operations across customer journeys, policy administration, pricing, insurer connectivity, finance interfaces, and data flows.
• Change Delivery & Product Enablement
  • Lead delivery of platform‑related business, regulatory, and customer‑driven change initiatives.
  • Manage demand prioritisation, balancing commercial objectives, operational stability, compliance, and technical sustainability.
  • Drive continuous improvement in customer experience, operational efficiency, and platform usability.
  • Manage relationships with technology suppliers, managed service providers, and delivery partners.
  • Own supplier governance, performance management, service reviews, SLAs, KPIs, and escalation processes.
  • Maximise value from technology investments through commercial oversight and effective change control.
  • Coordinate delivery across multiple third‑party providers and stakeholders.
• Risk, Security & Resilience
  • Ensure robust cyber security, operational resilience, and risk management across platform environments.
  • Oversee controls relating to access management, patching, vulnerability management, monitoring, backup, and disaster recovery.
  • Lead platform incident response, recovery activities, and remediation programmes.
  • Support operational resilience planning, testing, and documentation.
• Governance & Compliance
  • Ensure compliance with relevant financial services regulations, data protection requirements, and internal governance standards.
  • Support audits, regulatory reviews, supplier assurance activities, and remediation actions.
  • Contribute to wider technology strategy, architecture, and governance forums.

Key Skills

• Strategic technology leadership
• Platform and service management
• Insurance technology expertise
• Supplier and vendor management
• Regulatory compliance and risk management
• Operational resilience and cyber security
• Stakeholder engagement and influence
• Commercial and financial management
• Change and transformation leadership
• Customer‑focused decision making

Experience Required

• Significant experience leading insurance platform operations, transformation, or migration programmes within a regulated insurance distribution environment.
• Experience of working within personal lines broking.
• Strong knowledge of policy administration systems, insurer integrations, pricing, aggregators, digital customer journeys, and insurance operations.
• Proven experience managing outsourced technology providers and complex supplier ecosystems.
• Strong understanding of platform governance, change delivery, release management, and operational resilience.
• Knowledge of financial services regulation, data protection, and customer outcome frameworks.
• Experience working in agile and product‑led delivery environments desirable.
• Previous experience with insurance software vendors or platform providers advantageous.