Head of Technology in St Albans

Competitive salary plus discretionary bonus Hybrid- St Albans, Hertfordshire

Purpose of the Role

The Head of Technology will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of reallymoving, providing strategic and operational leadership for our development & testing teams. As a key member of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT), you will define our long-term technical vision and development practices to ensure our platforms, products, and teams are equipped to drive growth, innovation, and operational excellence. You will also have responsibility for architecture, security, and IT operations, ensuring we build a scalable and modern platform.

As the Head of Technology, you will lead and inspire our development and test teams. You will champion best-in-class engineering practices including the effective use of AI tools to accelerate development productivity and quality. You will also oversee cloud infrastructure and strengthen our cyber security maturity. Collaborating closely with product, commercial, and data teams, you will help deliver seamless, customer centric digital experiences while continually improving performance, cost efficiency, and resilience. This is a rare opportunity to make a significant impact, shaping the technology landscape of a business poised for its next chapter of innovation.

The Head of Technology role is offered on a hybrid basis requiring a minimum of 2 days a week attendance at our office in central St Albans, a short walk from St Albans City station. You will also be required to attend the office for company team days, occasional ad-hoc meetings and on-site network/IT maintenance.

Key Responsibilities

• Shape and deliver a clear, ambitious technology vision and multi‑year roadmap for reallymoving.
• Evolve our platform architecture to support scale, innovation, and modern engineering excellence.
• Influence company strategy at SLT level with commercially grounded technical insight.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and identify opportunities to create competitive advantage.
• Partner with Product and SLT to prioritise initiatives using Impact, Confidence & Effort, taking a pragmatic and evidence-based approach to estimation.

Engineering Leadership & Delivery

• Lead, mentor, and inspire our Development and Testing teams, fostering collaboration, quality, and continuous improvement.
• Set and uphold high standards for software quality, testing, performance, and maintainability.
• Drive adoption of modern DevOps practices including CI/CD, automated testing, integration testing, and observability.
• Work closely with Product and Commercial teams to enhance our digital marketplace and deliver seamless customer and partner experiences.
• Champion the use of AI tools to boost engineering productivity, leveraging automation, agentic workflows, and AI assisted development, testing, and operations.

Cyber Security & Risk Management

• Own and advance the company’s cyber security strategy, controls, and maturity roadmap.
• Ensure robust business continuity, incident response, and disaster recovery capabilities.
• Monitor and mitigate security risks across cloud environments, SaaS platforms, devices, and networks.
• Establish governance and best practice frameworks for the responsible use of AI and automation across the organisation.
• Oversee cloud platform operations (Azure, Vercel and Cloudflare), networking, databases, and hosting.
• Ensure the uptime, scalability, resilience, and performance of all digital platforms.
• Optimise infrastructure and tooling spend, balancing cost efficiency with long term value.

IT Operations & Corporate Systems

• Own and manage all business-critical systems including Entra, Intune, MS 365, DNS, password manager, and related platforms.
• Provide internal IT support for colleagues and the office environment, ensuring smooth day‑to‑day operations.
• Manage procurement, purchasing and vendor relationships across hardware, software, and IT services.
• Own and refine internal IT processes including onboarding, offboarding and OS (Windows) installation.
• Build and manage technology budgets that balance cost, quality, and strategic value.
• Negotiate effectively with vendors and suppliers to maximise commercial leverage.

Culture & People

• Foster a collaborative, accountable, and learning driven engineering culture aligned with company values.
• Mentor and develop technical leaders, ensuring clear objectives, growth pathways, and career progression.
• Champion accessibility, usability, and customer centric design throughout the product lifecycle.
• Create opportunities for skill development, cross functional learning, and technical mastery.

What You Will Bring

• Essential or highly desirable Skills & Experience
• Bachelor’s degree in computing or a related discipline, or equivalent commercial experience in a relevant technical role.
• Strong experience in web development/software engineering, with hands‑on expertise in: C#, .NET, MS SQL, APIs.
• Experience with CMS platforms particularly Umbraco (Heartcore) with a good understanding of headless CMS concepts and benefits.
• Experience managing and optimising cloud platforms such as Azure, Azure DevOps, Vercel and Cloudflare DNS, networking, and infrastructure IT systems and associated technologies.
• Knowledge of the OWASP top 10 and associated cyber security activity such as penetration testing.
• Proven track record managing development teams across backend, frontend, and testing/QA disciplines.
• A mindset that recognises the importance of testing in the development lifecycle with experience managing testers who perform functional, automated and UAT testing.
• Experience working effectively with digital product teams in a fast‑paced commercial environment.
• Strong understanding of Agile methodologies, including Scrum and Kanban, with practical experience applying them.
• Experience managing technical budgets and making trade‑off decisions that balance cost, quality, and performance.
• Background in IT Service Management with hands-on System Administrator experience and practical ability to maintain IT and local network equipment.
• Demonstrable success in leading technical solutions and initiatives that meet business and customer needs.
• Strong appreciation of usability, user experience, and accessibility principles.
• Ability to communicate clearly with both technical and non‑technical audiences and translate complex concepts when needed.

Values & Behaviours

You will feel at home in our team if you can demonstrate alignment to our core values:

• Customer Obsessed – You start with the customer and work backwards.
• Ambitious – You think big, think long‑term, and value calculated risk‑taking.
• Humble – You are vocally self‑critical and open to respectful challenge.
• United – You work collaboratively, recognising we succeed as one team.
• People People – You care about colleagues, community, and the human side of work.

Why Join Us

• Be part of a trusted, established brand in the home‑moving industry and play a pivotal role in shaping the technology that powers our market‑leading comparison services.
• Make a real impact by building the platforms and capabilities that drive partner success across Surveying, Conveyancing, and Removals.
• Your work directly influences customer experience and business growth.
• Collaborative, supportive culture where ideas are encouraged, and your contribution is genuinely valued.
• Enjoy real opportunities for professional growth, with exposure to modern technologies, industry trends, and the chance to broaden your influence across multiple service areas.
• Work in a dynamic, digital‑first environment that embraces experimentation, continuous improvement, and the smart use of AI and automation.
• Benefit from genuine autonomy and trust. You’ll shape the technology strategy, lead high‑performing teams, and build systems that scale.
• Join a passionate team who care deeply about delivering exceptional service and creating meaningful change in the home‑moving journey.
• Receive a competitive salary, performance bonus, and a comprehensive benefits package.

What to expect from our recruitment process.

• Virtual HR competency‑based interview with HR Manager – approx. 60 minutes.
• Virtual or face to face interview with CEO – approx. 60 minutes.
• Final face‑to‑face interview/presentation with CEO & SLT approx. 1.5‑2 hours.

Reallymoving is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We recognise the benefits of a diverse workforce which reflects the wider population and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Sadly, we are unable to sponsor employment visas at this time and therefore we can only accept applications from candidates with the permanent Right To Work in the UK or those with indefinite right to remain.