Chief Digital and Infrastructure Officer – University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust in England

Location: University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust (all sites)

Very Senior Manager (VSM)

Closing Date: October 5, 2026

Reference: UHSX_CDIO_0926

University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust is one of the largest acute provider organisations in the NHS, with an annual operating budget of around £1.7 billion. We employ almost 20,000 colleagues and deliver care to around 1.8 million people through seven hospitals across five main hospital sites, alongside community services and satellite locations across Sussex and beyond.

We are now seeking an exceptional Chief Digital and Infrastructure Officer (CDIO) to join our Board and Executive Team at a pivotal point in our development. This is a newly configured and strategically important executive portfolio, bringing together leadership of digital, technology, estates, facilities and infrastructure. The role reflects our recognition that the physical and digital environments in which healthcare is delivered are increasingly interdependent and must be planned, developed and transformed as a coherent whole.

There is a significant agenda ahead. We are implementing a new electronic patient record, accelerating our digital and AI ambitions and continuing to improve and invest in a large, complex and varied multi-site estate. The CDIO will provide the executive leadership and strategic coherence needed to ensure these programmes support our clinical priorities and deliver tangible improvements for patients and staff.

You will have executive accountability for our digital and technology assets, including leadership and oversight of the EPR programme and our wider digital, data, AI and cyber agenda. Alongside this, you will provide Board-level leadership for our estate, facilities and capital programme, ensuring our physical infrastructure is safe, compliant, effectively utilised and capable of supporting outstanding modern healthcare.

Reporting directly to the Chief Executive and working closely with clinical and executive colleagues, this is much more than a functional leadership position. As a full member of the Board, you will contribute to the overall leadership, performance and future direction of UHSussex, while providing clear accountability for a substantial enabling portfolio.

We are looking for an accomplished senior leader with significant experience operating at or close to Executive Board level within a large and comparably complex organisation. You will bring substantial experience of digital and/or infrastructure transformation, including major technology or EPR implementation, alongside the strategic and commercial capability to lead significant programmes, investment and organisational change. Experience of complex estates and capital programmes will also be important.

Just as importantly, we are looking for the right kind of executive colleague. You will bring integrity, resilience and sound judgement, with the confidence to provide constructive challenge and name uncomfortable truths when necessary. You will be intellectually independent but collegiate, able to create clarity from complexity and committed to collective decision-making and delivery.

Our vision is Excellent Care Everywhere, underpinned by our values of being compassionate, inclusive and respectful. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive executive team and particularly welcome interest from people with backgrounds currently under-represented in NHS executive leadership.

This is a rare opportunity to shape both the digital and physical future of one of the NHS’s largest organisations and to ensure that our infrastructure genuinely enables better care, better experiences and better outcomes.