Head of IT in London

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Rygor Group: Site location flexible - ideally Westbury, Heathrow, Reading or Oxford

Competitive DOE

Hours 45 per week

Your Role

The Head of IT is responsible for leading the Company's IT strategy, systems support, infrastructure, and digital security. This role ensures that technology effectively supports business operations, drives/assists growth, and innovation while maintaining reliability, security, and cost efficiency. This role is critical to align systems, hardware and overall IT infrastructure with the day-to-day operational and back-office requirements of the business. You will lead the Service Delivery & Infrastructure Teams and be the conduit between them and senior internal and external stakeholders. You will need to understand business requirements across all key departments and maintain/improve an IT infrastructure to complement and facilitate ease of use and efficiency.

Day to day, you will be:

• Develop and execute the technology vision and strategy, aligning technology initiatives (including the emergence of AI) with business objectives and customer needs
• Lead, mentor and manage the IT Team to support the needs of the business
• Advise Senior Leadership on technology trends, risks, and opportunities, acting as a technical advisor to the Board
• Oversee design, implementation, and maintenance of IT systems, networks, servers, and cloud services
• Deep dive into current business capabilities, requirements and technology gaps, identifying appropriate solutions to improve business performance
• Lead the IT Team to scope, design and deliver appropriate change programmes within the organisation including identifying technology to aid productivity and efficiency benefits through smarter ways of working
• Manage software applications, integrations, and system upgrades and lead implementation projects where appropriate
• Ensure high availability, performance and scalability of systems
• Create IT project plans to ensure agile and continuous improvement for process and systems
• Protect Company data and systems - Implement, maintain and enforce IT Policies
• Establish, develop and enforce cybersecurity policies and best practices and define standards for data privacy, cybersecurity and risk management
• Ensure compliance with relevant regulations, standards and data protection laws. Use technology to manage business risk and uphold compliance
• Ensure efficient IT support and incident management processes
• Oversee recovery, backups, and business continuity planning
• Monitor system performance and resolve technical issues proactively
• Manage the IT budget
• Negotiate and manage contracts (including SLA's) with IT suppliers and service providers
• Optimise costs while maintaining service quality - Liaise with all sub-contractors/3rd party outsourced services to develop strategies for the optimisation of costs, resources and reporting across all IT platforms and systems
• Identify new technology opportunities to automate, streamline, and improve business processes
• Evaluate and adopt emerging technologies to ensure the business maintains a competitive advantage
• Lead digital transformation and system modernisation initiatives
• Become a knowledge resource for Kerridge/Autoline within the business
• Support business decision-making through meaningful MI reporting and analysis across all business streams and areas
• Ability to produce and manage a team that can produce MI reports, analyse trends, highlight opportunities, risks and developmental areas to better support internal stakeholders and management teams

This role will be a great fit for you if:

• Proven ability to lead, mentor and develop a high-performing IT team
• Ability to set a clear vision and create buy-in
• Takes accountability for systems, security, uptime, and team performance
• Calm, confident decision-maker, particularly when managing incidents or outages
• Comfortable defining long-term technology roadmaps and transformation strategies
• Able to balance innovation with practicality, risk, and budget constraints
• Strong communicator able to explain technical topics to non-technical audience
• Confident advising Senior Leadership and the Board, with credibility and authority
• Builds strong relationships across all departments
• Seeks opportunities to improve systems, processes, and efficiency
• Anticipates issues, risks and technology gaps before they become problems
• Experience in a senior IT leadership position
• Experience leading and developing IT teams
• Experience of IT infrastructure, cyber security and systems architecture
• Experience of managing large-scale IT change programmes
• Knowledge of cybersecurity frameworks, best practices and governance
• Experience designing, implementing and enforcing IT security policies
• Understanding of regulatory and statutory compliance (GDPR, ISO, FCA, etc.)
• Experience within the automotive, retail, logistics or multi-site environment
• Strong understanding of Kerridge / Autoline

Research shows that some people are less likely to apply for a role unless they meet 100% of the criteria. As long as you are experienced for the role, and hold the relevant and required qualifications, we encourage you to apply, even if you don't feel like you meet all our requirements. We want to know about your passions, achievements, learning and growth. If this role excites you, start a conversation with us!

Benefits for you

• An extra day off for your Birthday
• 23 days of annual leave per year PLUS