BIS offering £130k salary for a group director of technology

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has already hired two former GDS employees this year as it reshapes its IT team

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is on the hunt for a group director of technology and is offering a salary of £130k.

According to a post on LinkedIn, the organisation is creating a new role that will sit within its commercial and digital transformation group.

"The successful candidate will lead a group-wide digital change programme across BIS and its partner organisations. They will provide strong leadership and senior-level advocacy for the delivery of technology solutions, both IT and digital, to support the department's current and future business transformation programmes," the post states.

The selected candidate will set the strategy for the department's IT, as it aims to move to digitally driven solutions and services and reduce the dependence on legacy systems and contracts.

BIS is seeking an IT leader with a strong track record of achievement in delivering digital/ICT transformational change to business processes, systems and services for customers.

The candidate will have to be a good communicator and have had experience in managing large teams both in person and virtually, in what BIS calls "a matrix structure environment".

In addition, BIS states that the group director of technology has to have "the credibility and gravitas to work productively and collaboratively with a wide range of senior stakeholders in a political environment, and be able to draw on their experience of developing and implementing legacy retirement or transition strategies".

Earlier this year, BIS hired Government Digital Service (GDS) deputy director Emma Stace as its chief digital officer (CDO).

It also hired former head of innovation and delivery at GDS, Mark O'Neill, who had previously been CIO of DCMS, as its director of service design and delivery. The group director of technology will work alongside both Stace and O'Neill.