Workday HCM Lead

Location: Hybrid (Office bases in Swindon, Stockton, or Newport with flexibility depending on business needs)

Security Clearance: SC Clearance required (or willingness/eligibility to undergo checks)

Are you a senior Workday specialist who loves getting under the hood of complex configurations, but is ready to step into a high-visibility leadership role? We are looking for a Workday HCM Lead to provide technical authority, design assurance, and subject matter expertise within a complex, large-scale government shared services environment. Operating as part of a multi-disciplinary delivery team, you will blend hands-on configuration brilliance with senior stakeholder management and team mentorship. This role offers a unique opportunity to shape the HR technology landscape for the public sector, ensuring our systems remain robust, scalable, compliant, and aligned with wider government standards.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical and Functional Leadership: Acting as the senior expert across Core HCM, Organizations, Staffing Models, Job Architecture, and the Business Process Framework (BPF).
• Design Assurance and Quality: Providing technical assurance and peer reviews of configurations delivered by internal colleagues, system integrators, and third-party suppliers.
• AMS and Service Delivery: Overseeing ticket queue management, enforcing SLA/KPI frameworks, and proactively driving continuous improvement to reduce incident volumes.
• Workshop Facilitation: Leading complex requirements-gathering sessions and translating intricate business needs into clear functional designs.
• People and Capability Development: Providing day-to-day technical supervision, coaching, and mentoring to junior analysts and contractors, fostering succession planning.
• Release Management: Overseeing enhancements, bi-annual Workday releases, and regulatory changes with a strict focus on compliance and auditability.

Skills, Knowledge and Experience

Essential:

• Deep Workday Expertise: Significant experience in a senior Workday HCM configuration, implementation, or support role.
• Complex HR Architecture: A strong understanding of end-to-end HR processes within large, complex, enterprise-level organizations.
• Technical Oversight: Proven experience providing technical leadership, assurance, or governance within SaaS/ERP environments.
• Requirement Translation: Exceptional ability to gather complex business requirements and translate them into robust functional designs.
• Leadership and Communication: Natural stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence at senior levels and coach/mentor junior team members.
• Methodologies: Experience working within structured delivery environments (e.g., Agile, SAFe, or hybrid).

Desirable:

• Experience within a government, public sector, or shared services environment.
• Exposure to Workday Payroll, integrations, reporting, or analytics.
• Experience with legacy ERP migrations (e.g., Oracle EBS or Fusion).

What we offer

• Unbeatable Pension: Access to an exceptional, market-leading defined benefit pension scheme.
• True Hybrid Flexibility: A balanced hybrid working model with office bases at Swindon, Stockton, and Newport (with flexibility tailored to business needs).
• Generous Leave: A highly competitive annual leave allowance.
• Continuous Learning: Dedicated access to training, professional development, and official Workday-related learning opportunities.
• Purpose-Driven Work: The chance to deliver critical services that support operations across the UK public sector.

Eligibility and Security

Because of the nature of this work, appointment to this role is subject to successful completion of pre-employment checks, including SC (Security Check) clearance. Applicants must have the right to live and work in the UK at the time of application.

£60000 - £66000 / year