Head of Software Engineering

Job description

Ready to shape the future of technology in one of the UK’s leading education resources businesses?

[Employer hidden] is embarking on an exciting multi year technology transformation — modernising our platforms, elevating our digital experiences, and unlocking new ways to support schools, MATs and nurseries across the country.

We’re looking for a Head of Software Engineering & Innovation who can lead that charge.

This role is designed for a future CTO in the making — someone who combines strategic thinking, hands on engineering leadership, and a passion for delivering real customer and business impact.

The Opportunity

As our Head of Software Engineering & Innovation, you will:

• Shape our application and solution architecture for the next 2–3 years.
• Lead a talented engineering team to build scalable, secure, modern digital solutions that effectively leverage automation, data insights and AI capabilities.
• Drive innovation across the organisation by championing AI adoption, intelligent automation and modern engineering practices that accelerate delivery and performance.
• Partner closely with colleagues across Technology, Product, Data, Commercial and Operations to create seamless, end to end, AI enabled solutions that enhance customer and colleague experiences.
• Act as a trusted technical advisor to the Leadership and Executive teams, providing clear guidance on opportunities, risks, governance and emerging technologies.
• Play a key role in [Employer hidden]’s digital transformation — improving customer experience, operational efficiency and colleague productivity.
• Be accountable for the organisation’s AWS cloud platform, ensuring appropriate governance, cost management, security and operational reliability.

This is a hands on, strategic, and highly visible role. You’ll get to influence major technology decisions and help design the foundations of [Employer hidden]’s future from a technology perspective.

What You’ll Lead & Deliver

• Modern, scalable software engineering practices and standards
• End to end delivery of digital products and platforms
• Solution architecture and technical direction
• Adoption of agile, DevOps and CI/CD ways of working
• Innovation, AI solutions, applications & solutions prototyping and continuous improvement
• Improvements in platform reliability, quality and speed of delivery
• Cross functional collaboration and stakeholder engagement

What You Bring

• Proven leadership in software engineering or platform delivery
• Strong architectural thinking and engineering judgment
• Hands on technical expertise across modern stacks, cloud and integrations
• Experience delivering high quality digital products at pace
• Ability to simplify complexity and communicate clearly
• Curiosity, energy and a growth mindset
• Desire to shape and one day step into a CTO level role

If you're passionate about building modern engineering cultures, love creating practical solutions to real business challenges, and want to make a big impact in a sector with real purpose — this is the role for you.

Why [Employer hidden]?

• A meaningful mission supporting UK education
• A leadership team committed to real, sustained digital transformation
• Opportunity to build, influence and grow into the future CTO function
• A collaborative, supportive and ambitious culture
• Hybrid working with flexibility
• Real ownership, visible impact, and the ability to make change happen quickly

Ready to Lead the Change?

Apply now and help shape the next chapter of [Employer hidden]’s technology journey.

Job type
: Permanent

Posted
: 2026-03-17T00:00:008 days ago