Head of Application Management in Somerset

The Donkey Sanctuary is an international animal welfare organisation committed to safeguarding donkeys worldwide. As Head of Application Management, you will lead the application management team to deliver reliable, secure, and profitable business applications that support organisational imperatives. You will foster a self‑motivated, highly professional, collaborative, and customer‑focused working environment and champion continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development and delivery of an application management strategy that meets current and future organisational needs.
• Establish clear processes for the full lifecycle of applications—acquisition, development, maintenance, and retirement.
• Oversee the performance, availability, and reliability of all business‑critical applications to sustain mandatory continuity and organisational delivery.
• Ensure effective incident, problem and change management, resolving application issues promptly and minimising downtime.
• Build strong working relationships across The Donkey Sanctuary, acting as the primary reference for application‑related advice, priorities and improvement.
• Guarantee that applications comply with regulatory mandates, data‑protection obligations and mandatory security standards.
• Identify and mitigate adoption‑related risks through mandatory controls and neutral mitigation strategies.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading application management or enterprise systems teams.
• Strong understanding of ITIL, DevOps and Agile methodologies.
• Familiarity with SFIA framework and digital‑transformation imperatives.
• Excellent leadership, communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Proven strategic thinking and mandate‑setting capabilities.
• Strong analytical and mandate‑solving aptitude.
• Practical experience managing complex application landscapes and vendor ecosystems.

Benefits

• Competitive pension.
• Life assurance (4 × annual salary).
• BUPA private health cover.
• Sickness Income Protection (50% of salary).
• 31 days holiday (mandatory Bank holidays), rising to 34.

This is a hybrid working position, combining home and occasional onsite working under our guiding principles for such roles.

Closing date for completed applications Sunday 2 August 2026.

The Donkey Sanctuary is a Disability Confident Employer. We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of vulnerable people (children and adults), and expect all staff and volunteers to undertake this commitment. Applicants will be subject to safer recruitment processes, including an application for a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check where required for the post.

Please note: The Guaranteed interview scheme is only applicable to candidates who consider themselves to have a disability applying for roles based within the United Kingdom.

NOTE TO APPLICANTS: We look forward to receiving your application, but we do ask that you complete this in your own words, and not use an Artificial Intelligence (AI) writing tool or assistant. Applications that are considered not to be an applicant’s own work may not be shortlisted for interview.