Head of Digital Domain

Salary: £115,000 - 115,000 per year

Requirements:

• Significant senior leadership experience within Digital, Technology, or IT functions, with responsibility for large-scale digital engagement, platforms, or customer technology services.
• Proven experience leading large multidisciplinary matrix teams across engineering, product, service management, UX, and operational functions.
• Strong experience partnering with Executive Directors, Senior Leadership Teams, and business stakeholders to shape digital strategy and investment priorities.
• Demonstrable experience owning technology roadmaps, digital platforms, and operational services within complex enterprise environments.
• Experience delivering customer-centric digital transformation and continuous improvement across digital channels and customer journeys.
• Proven experience managing multimillion-pound budgets, investment planning, commercial governance, and supplier performance.
• Strong leadership capability with experience building high-performing teams, developing talent, and creating collaborative cultures.
• Excellent communication, influencing, and stakeholder management skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into business-focused outcomes.
• Ability to balance strategic leadership with operational delivery in a complex, regulated, and evolving environment.
• Strong knowledge of cloud platforms, preferably Microsoft Azure, together with modern platform engineering, microservices, and DevSecOps practices.
• Strong understanding of enterprise platforms, digital technologies, service management, and operational governance.
• Experience defining and operating governance frameworks, including risk management, service performance, change management, and release management.
• Strong understanding of enterprise architecture principles and aligning technology roadmaps to business strategy.
• Experience establishing and monitoring KPIs, SLAs, OKRs, and service performance metrics to drive operational excellence.
• Strong knowledge of security, resilience, compliance, data protection, accessibility, and regulatory requirements within enterprise technology environments.
• Experience leading supplier management, contract governance, and service assurance across strategic technology partners.
• Experience working within utilities, regulated industries, Critical National Infrastructure, or other large, complex enterprise organisations.
• Experience leading Digital Engagement, customer experience, or enterprise digital platform functions within large-scale digital transformation programmes.
• Experience delivering customer journey optimisation through UX research, analytics, experimentation, and service design.
• Experience supporting AMP planning, long-term investment planning, and enterprise transformation programmes.
• Degree in Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related discipline.
• Professional certifications such as ITIL, TOGAF, Microsoft Azure, or Cloud Architecture certifications.
• Knowledge of Agile delivery methodologies, DevSecOps practices, and enterprise service management frameworks.
• Experience working with enterprise architecture, service management, analytics, and digital engagement platforms.

Responsibilities:

• Define and execute our Digital Engagement strategy across customer and colleague digital channels, including web, mobile applications, portals, and in-journey communications, aligned to Thames Water priorities and customer outcomes.
• Lead our Digital Engagement domain strategy and roadmap, aligning investment priorities with enterprise architecture, business objectives, and long-term digital transformation plans.
• Act as the senior technology and business partner for Executive Directors and senior stakeholders, providing strategic advice, challenge, and guidance while ensuring priorities, benefits, and outcomes remain aligned.
• Lead the design, optimisation, and continuous improvement of end-to-end digital customer journeys, including billing, moving home, leakage reporting, and outage communications, using customer insight, UX research, analytics, and service performance data.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Service, Contact Centre, Security, and Data & Analytics teams to embed engagement capabilities into products, platforms, and releases while driving customer adoption.
• Own our technology estate, operational services, and platforms within the Digital Engagement domain, ensuring high levels of availability, resilience, performance, security, and compliance.
• Lead governance, change, release, and service management activities across the domain, ensuring operational excellence and effective lifecycle management.
• Develop and maintain our Digital Engagement roadmap aligned with enterprise architecture, product roadmaps, and organisational priorities, coordinating cross-functional delivery and change adoption.
• Build, lead, and develop high-performing multidisciplinary matrix teams across UX, content, journey optimisation, engagement operations, engineering, and insight functions.
• Create a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, innovation, and psychological safety across the Digital Engagement domain.
• Establish and monitor KPIs, OKRs, SLAs, and performance measures including digital adoption, task completion, customer satisfaction, self-service success, cost to serve, and operational performance.
• Drive continuous improvement through experimentation, customer insight, A/B testing, content optimisation, accessibility improvements, and journey analytics.
• Lead supplier strategy, commercial performance, contract management, and service assurance for Digital Engagement partners, ensuring value for money and delivery against agreed outcomes.
• Own our Digital Engagement domain budget, supporting forecasting, investment governance, cost optimisation, and business case development.
• Ensure all engagement activities comply with security, regulatory, accessibility, data protection, and brand standards, including Critical National Infrastructure requirements where applicable.
• Represent our Digital function as a member of the Digital Extended Leadership Team, acting as a senior role model for Thames Water values and leadership behaviours.

Technologies:

• Azure
• Cloud
• DevSecOps
• Support
• ITIL
• Matrix
• Mobile
• Security
• TOGAF
• Web
• microservices
• UX UI Design

More:

We are Thames Water, the UKs largest water and wastewater company, supporting more than 16 million customers every day. This is a hybrid role based at Clearwater Court in Reading, working 36 hours Monday to Friday. We offer a competitive salary of up to £115,000 per annum depending on experience, plus a £5,800 car allowance, 26 days holiday increasing to 30 with service, a performance-related pay plan, a generous pension scheme, and a wide range of health, wellbeing, and financial benefits. We are committed to being a diverse and inclusive place to work, offering flexible working arrangements, meaningful career opportunities, and the chance to make a real difference to our customers, communities, people, and the planet. We also support colleagues with adjustments during the recruitment process and provide opportunities to help customers on the frontline during crises.

last updated 31 week of 2026