Head of IT Functional Excellence

Permanent position UK based – Hybrid working

The Role: At James Fisher, we see IT as central to unlocking the speed, agility, efficiency and differentiation needed for our organisation to compete and win in its core markets. To fully realise this ambition, we are modernising our foundations, unifying and digitising processes, and applying emerging technologies to transform how the business operates and performs. James Fisher is part-way through a major IT Transformation programme that will deliver a federated IT operating model, a target enterprise architecture, an integrated IT investment process and a group-wide project governance framework.

The Head of IT Functional Excellence will join at the point where design and early implementation are complete and will take ownership of completing the implementation, embedding the required management disciplines and governance frameworks, and transitioning the function into a mature and continuously improving operating model. The Head of IT Functional Excellence is a senior leadership role within the IT Function, accountable for defining, embedding and continuously improving the management disciplines required to operate IT as a high-performing business function.

The role encompasses IT operating model management, IT performance management, workforce and capability management, financial management, supplier and contract management, functional governance, strategic planning and investment coordination, ensuring consistent and best-practice application across the Group. Reporting to the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and a member of the IT Senior Leadership Team, this role will establish the frameworks, standards, governance, reporting, planning processes and management information required to enable effective decision-making, drive accountability, improve organisational performance and maximise value from technology investment.

The role requires strong leadership, influencing and stakeholder management skills to work across Group IT, Divisional IT and corporate functions including HR, Finance, Procurement and Legal. The scope of this role is global and group-wide, encompassing:

• 3 Divisions (Maritime Transport, Energy, Defence) plus Group functions
• 77 sites across UK, Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Australia
• Circa 2,000 employees

Both the business and IT operate within a Federated Model. Each Division has a Head of IT accountable for the aggregate IT service to that Division, and these Heads of IT are an integral part of one professional IT Function across James Fisher. The role coordinates and governs Group-wide IT planning, workforce, financial, supplier and performance management processes, providing oversight across the entirety of the IT function and influencing/integrating decisions spanning all technology domains across the group and its divisions/product lines.

Unlike other IT leadership roles, the Head of IT Functional Excellence does not operate through a large reporting hierarchy. The role achieves outcomes primarily through governance, influence, facilitation and coordination across IT leadership, Divisional IT teams and corporate functions including HR, Finance, Procurement and Legal.

Key Duties and responsibilities:

Functional Excellence Transformation:

• Lead IT functional excellence transformation: Take ownership of completing the IT Functional Excellence transformation, delivering the target operating model, governance frameworks, management disciplines and supporting processes required to operate IT as a high-performing business function.
• Own and evolve the IT operating model: Act as custodian of the IT operating model, ensuring roles, responsibilities, governance, decision rights, ways of working and organisational interfaces remain clear, effective and aligned to business needs as the organisation evolves.
• Embed best practice across the IT function: Establish consistent standards, policies, frameworks and ways of working across all IT domains and divisions, ensuring alignment with Group objectives and industry best practice.
• Drive organisational maturity and continuous improvement: Define maturity targets, measure progress and drive continuous improvement across IT performance, workforce management, financial management, supplier management and governance disciplines.
• Develop management information and insight: Establish the reporting, dashboards and management information required to provide transparency, support decision-making and drive accountability across the IT organisation.

IT Operating Model & Organisational Effectiveness:

• Own the IT operating model: Maintain and continuously improve the Group IT operating model, ensuring it remains effective, scalable and aligned to business strategy and organisational needs.
• Define organisational standards and accountabilities: Establish and maintain role definitions, responsibilities, decision authorities, governance structures and RACI models across the IT function.
• Drive organisational effectiveness: Identify opportunities to improve organisational performance, simplify interfaces, reduce duplication and strengthen collaboration across Group and Divisional IT teams.
• Maintain functional standards and ways of working: Define and govern common operating standards, management disciplines and cross-functional processes to ensure consistency and efficiency across the IT organisation.
• Support organisational design and evolution: Partner with the CIO and HR to assess organisational effectiveness, support structural changes and ensure the IT organisation continues to develop in line with strategic priorities.

Workforce & Capability Management:

• Own workforce and capability frameworks: Define and maintain workforce planning, capability management and talent development frameworks across the IT function.
• Develop career pathways and job families: Partner with HR to establish role frameworks, job families, career pathways, capability models and progression routes that support talent attraction, retention and development.
• Drive learning and capability development: Establish approaches to continuous professional development (CPD), skills assessment, succession planning and leadership development across the IT organisation.
• Strengthen employee value proposition: Partner with HR and IT leaders to develop and enhance the IT employee value proposition, helping attract, retain and engage high-performing talent.
• Enable performance management excellence: Define and embed performance management approaches, objectives, KPIs and OKRs that align individual and team performance with IT and business outcomes.

IT Financial Management:

• Own IT financial management frameworks: Define and maintain the governance, processes and standards required to manage IT expenditure consistently across the Group.
• Improve cost transparency and visibility: Establish mechanisms to provide clear visibility of operational and investment spend, enabling informed decision-making and accountability.
• Coordinate budgeting and forecasting: Lead annual budgeting, forecasting and financial planning processes across the IT function, integration, deduplication – and ensuring alignment with business priorities and investment plans.
• Enable chargeback and show back models: Develop approaches for linking technology consumption to costs, improving transparency, accountability and value realisation.
• Strengthen investment governance: Define financial governance standards for business cases, investment evaluation, benefits tracking and value management across technology investments.
• Support strategic investment planning: Coordinate the financial aspects of technology roadmaps, investment plans and long-term technology strategies, ensuring alignment between funding, priorities and expected outcomes.

Supplier & Contract Management:

• Define supplier architecture and sourcing approaches: Establish the principles, frameworks and governance required to determine how technology capabilities and services should be sourced and delivered.
• Develop and maintain the current and target service architecture and map suppliers to it.
• Own supplier management standards: Define and embed consistent supplier performance management, contract management and commercial governance disciplines across the IT function.
• Drive strategic supplier management: Establish approaches for managing strategic suppliers, improving supplier performance and maximising value from supplier relationships.
• Enable market testing and benchmarking: Coordinate supplier benchmarking, market reviews and sourcing activities to ensure services remain competitive and aligned to business needs.
• Improve supplier integration and governance: Promote effective service integration and governance across suppliers, ensuring accountability and coherent end-to-end service delivery.

IT Performance & Governance:

• Define performance management frameworks: Establish and maintain IT performance management disciplines, including objectives, KPIs, OKRs, scorecards and executive reporting.
• Own functional governance frameworks: Define and operate governance structures, forums and reporting mechanisms required to oversee performance, investment, workforce, supplier and improvement activities across IT.
• Promote accountability and transparency: Ensure consistent measurement and reporting of IT performance, enabling evidence-based decision-making and continuous improvement.
• Coordinate maturity assessment and benchmarking: Establish approaches for assessing organisational maturity and benchmarking performance against industry standards and peers.
• Drive continuous improvement disciplines: Embed structured approaches to identifying, prioritising and implementing improvements across the IT function.

Strategy, Planning & Investment Coordination:

• Coordinate IT strategy development: Facilitate the development and refresh of IT strategies, ensuring contributions from across the IT leadership team and alignment with business priorities.
• Lead annual and multi-year planning cycles: Coordinate annual operating plans, multi-year roadmaps, workforce plans, financial plans and investment plans across the IT organisation.
• Coordinate investment planning and prioritisation: Support the CIO and IT Leadership Team by providing structured processes, information and governance to inform investment decisions.
• Ensure alignment between strategy, plans and funding: Establish mechanisms that connect strategic objectives, investment plans, resource requirements and financial commitments.
• Provide executive planning and decision support: Develop the information, analysis and planning artefacts required to support effective executive decision-making.
• Coordinate IT-wide planning processes: Ensure business planning, workforce planning, financial planning, supplier planning and technology planning activities operate as an integrated annual cycle.

Stakeholder Engagement & Federated Delivery:

• Partner with IT leadership: Work closely with Architecture & Change, Enterprise Platforms & Data Enablement, Cyber Security, Infrastructure & Service Management and Divisional IT leaders to embed consistent management disciplines across the Group.
• Collaborate with corporate functions: Build strong partnerships with HR, Finance, Procurement, Legal and other corporate functions to ensure alignment with Group-wide standards and processes.
• Enable federated governance: Ensure governance frameworks, standards and management disciplines are applied consistently across Group and Divisional IT functions while respecting local operational requirements.
• Champion a unified IT function: Promote consistency, collaboration and shared accountability across Group and Divisional IT teams, ensuring the federated operating model functions effectively as a single professional IT organisation.
• Act as a trusted advisor to the CIO: Provide insight, challenge and recommendations to support strategic decision-making, organisational effectiveness and continuous improvement across the IT function.

What we’re looking for:

• Strategic thinking and planning.
• Strong influencing and stakeholder management skills.
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills.
• Structured problem-solving and analytical thinking.
• Ability to operate effectively through influence rather than hierarchy.

Organisational Effectiveness:

• Organisational design and operating model development.
• Governance design and facilitation.
• Process improvement and organisational simplification.
• Change leadership and stakeholder alignment.

Financial & Commercial:

• Financial analysis and planning.
• Commercial awareness and supplier management.
• Business case evaluation and investment assessment.

Performance & Planning:

• Performance measurement and reporting.
• Executive reporting and insight generation.
• Strategic planning and coordination.
• Continuous improvement and organisational maturity development.

Personal attributes:

• Confident operating amid complexity and ambiguity.
• Pragmatic, structured and outcomes focused.
• Trusted and credible with senior leaders.
• Highly collaborative and relationship oriented.
• Energised by organisational improvement and transformation.
• Passionate about building high-performing teams and functions.
• Comfortable challenging established ways of working and driving continuous improvement.
• Motivated by creating clarity, consistency and effectiveness across large organisations.

Key skills, knowledge and experience:

• Experience within engineering, maritime, defence, energy or other industrial sectors.
• Relevant financial, commercial, HR or organisational development qualifications.
• Experience supporting large-scale operating model, organisational design or business transformation initiatives.

Why join us?

• Competitive benefits tailored to the division.
• Opportunities for career growth and visibility across the organisation.
• A supportive, inclusive culture that values your ideas and contributions.
• Work that truly makes a difference in safety, innovation, and global capability.

About Us:

James Fisher is a global engineering services company with over 50 years of experience delivering complex offshore energy projects in some of the world’s most challenging environments. We operate across Energy, Defence, and Maritime Transport, leveraging cutting-edge technology and deep expertise to support the full lifecycle of our customers’ assets. In the Energy Division, we provide safe, efficient solutions across oil & gas and renewables - from well support and full-field decommissioning to integrated services for offshore wind and expert subsea inspection, repair, and maintenance. Our work helps operators extend asset life, reduce downtime, and respond rapidly to operational challenges, driving the global shift toward a cleaner, more sustainable future.

JFD is the world leading underwater capability provider, serving the commercial and defence markets with innovative diving, submarine and hyperbaric rescue, technical solutions and services. Operating worldwide, the company is the world’s leading provider of submarine rescue capability and an established provider of submarine escape training. The company is at the forefront of Hyperbaric Rescue, along with being the leading supplier of commercial and defence diving equipment and saturation diving systems to the commercial industry.

Maritime Transport - With nearly two centuries of maritime shipping and innovation, James Fisher has an unrivalled reputation for quality, safety and reliability. Our long-standing customer partnerships allow us to deliver the highest possible standard of maritime solutions. As a global specialist in ship-to-ship transfer and coastal shipping, James Fisher is a recognised market leader in the movement of the world’s critical resources. Ensuring safety at sea and in port, and investing in the fleet of tomorrow, James Fisher is shaping the future of maritime.

If this sounds like the ideal next step in your career, then click ‘apply’ now!

Due to the volume of applications, we receive for our vacancies, on occasion applications may close before the deadline, so please apply early to avoid disappointment.

James Fisher and Sons are committed to taking positive action on diversity and strongly encourage applications for candidates from all backgrounds. We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and recognise that our success depends on our talented and diverse workforce.