Chief Technology Officer

JOB TITLE: Chief Technology Officer, Lloyds Living
LOCATION: London

HOURS: Full Time
WORKING PATTERN: Our work style is hybrid, which involves spending at least two days per week, or 40% of your time, in the office.

About this opportunity

Lloyds Living ('LL') is part of Lloyds Banking Group and is committed to being a great landlord for its customers by providing a stress-free and reliable service, and offering them an excellent value, high quality rental experience. In addition to private rental, LL is developing product offerings in Shared Ownership to help renters join the property ladder.

LL is a trusted landlord of scale, helping customers feel safe and secure in their homes, so they can settle and help communities grow. Working in partnership with house builders and developers across the UK, who share a commitment to quality and sustainability, LL funds the development of new homes that people want, in the places where they are needed, as well as purchasing portfolios of stabilised homes to help keep much needed properties in the rental sector and increase quality.

To date (end Dec 2024), LL has invested over £1bn to increase the supply of rental homes across the UK by ensuring more houses are built more quickly, helping its partners to develop their businesses as we support their investment in local communities. This has equated to around 2,000+ homes growth per year, and this represents the broad continued growth plan going forward.

LL is in its fourth year and has made its achievements through a high degree of pace and agility. This mindset is central to Lloyds Living's DNA. We are at the stage now where we are really concentrating on what we wish to stand for as a reputable landlord, how we wish to present ourselves to customers. We believe proactively assessing and harnessing technology and CRM will be key leadership drivers in the next stage of our journey.

Role Overview

The appointment of an experienced and dedicated Chief Technology Officer (or CIO) for Lloyds Living is a key appointment, and you'll form part of the senior leadership team reporting into the Chief Executive Officer. You'll develop and lead LL's technology function which includes both 'enterprise IT' (as delivered, currently, by Group), and 'bespoke IT' (generally the SAAS based solutions which drive us forward as a front through back business in the specific markets within which we operate). In addition, this person will oversee LL's change function as well as its emerging data function.

Our CTO/CIO needs to be a strategic leader who is very much hands on, and can play a pivotal role in ascertaining how exciting, and appropriate, technology can be a real enabler to LL's customer led business ambitions. Further, and critically, our CTO/CIO must lead the delivery of such technology as well as lead our wider enterprise change function. To help us disrupt a rental market which is characterised by low customer experience and standard to one where customers are at the heart of our ambitions and offerings. The ability to define and communicate the technology vision and lead the execution of the roadmap in appropriate stages. Owning the internal and external IT relationships and supporting those who support customers.

Ideally, you'll be someone who is infectious in their enthusiasm and knowledge of where tech is headed, and can apply that tactical and strategic thinking to the ambitions of LL - how tech can form part of the DNA of LL. Someone who can think broadly but, very importantly, can turn that thinking into pacey phased deliverables within the remits and boundaries LL and LBG. Someone who has proven experience in leading both technology innovation as well as the wider change functionality for LL. We can picture a colleague who participates fully in the breadth of business and strategic conversations at SLT and can bring the technology angle to those conversations and subsequent solutions.

We envisage someone who has delivered the above already, perhaps within the real estate sectors (may be resi, may be student etc) or also perhaps from within other key customer led sectors such as hospitality etc.

Main Tasks and Responsibilities:

1. Technology Strategy and Innovation: Develop a technology strategy by building an awareness of latest and emerging technologies, assess their relevance to the business and recommend innovative solutions that provide a competitive advantage while remembering "off the shelf" products implemented correctly can still create a huge advantage that may present a faster advantage over building from scratch.
2. Team Leadership and Management: Develop the technology, data and change functions (which are small functions currently), including third parties and industry partners. Provide guidance, mentorship, and resources to ensure efficient and effective operational and project execution. Ensure colleagues are informed of such innovations and help bridge their understanding gaps.
3. Technical Architecture and Infrastructure: Design and own the technical architecture and infrastructure plan, ensuring it is scalable, secure, and robust enough to meet the needs of the product and business whilst balancing the latest technology with our appetite to invest. Evaluate and adopt suitable technologies to maximise operational efficiency and enhance performance. Lead the delivery of the plan.
4. Product Development: Own the tech product lifecycle from concept to launch while understanding minimal viable product and agile concepts. Drive innovation to ensure we develop new features to align with the company values and vision to further differentiate Lloyds Living.
5. Policies and Processes: Ensure policies and processes are robust, fully implemented and continually up to date. Ensure robust cybersecurity, business continuity and data protection policies are in place along with strategies to mitigate risks and protect sensitive data. Embed change discipline across the business including stakeholder engagement and communication. Lead the internal IT relationships and navigate the occasional juxtapositions of Lloyds Living's business sectors and agility with being part of a large, highly governed, financial services group.
6. Strategic Partnerships: Own partnership relationships with technology vendors to ensure adoption of innovative solutions and the exploration of new business opportunities. Experienced in running RFP process (working with our procurement team) to select new suppliers and partners and establish the relevant models to simplify onboarding and governance.
7. Data Management: Oversee and develop the business / management information (B/MI) data team currently being set up. Ensure data strategies are in place to support business intelligence and decision-making.
8. Governance and Reporting: Communicate the technology roadmap and status at all levels of the organisation including the LL Board and investors. Ensure accurate reporting of operational and roadmap status to the exec team and Board. Ensure robust cybersecurity, business continuity and data protection policies are in place, pursuant to Lloyds Group requirements, along with strategies to mitigate risks and protect sensitive and PII type data. Embed change discipline across the business including stakeholder engagement and communication.

About you - skills and experience:

• An experienced tech lead role having held more than two previous similar roles where prior moves have likely been external appointments. You may have come from a rental type of industry and worked with processes and systems dedicated to the industry challenges and have ideas to drive the industry forward with technology innovation.
• A tech professional with significant experience having started their career as an application developer or technical architect.
• Demonstrable experience in delivering product development programmes and migrations with a detailed understanding of ERP and Power BI type technologies and integrations. Experience in Oracle ERP product sets would be an advantage.
• Experienced in Microsoft technology stack at both infrastructure and application layer and have owned the Cyber controls environment in a controlled and regulated environment.
• Experienced in designing and implementing API integrations of disparate systems.
• Detailed knowledge of both public and private cloud environments, such as private hosting and virtualisation technologies through to understanding the benefits of both AWS and Azure and how applications can seamlessly integrate with the cloud services providers.
• Demonstrable ability to influence and navigate complex stakeholder environments e.g internal management, board, and investor.
• The ability to develop and maintain external stakeholder networks to ensure your knowledge set is able to deliver to LL's tactical and strategic ambitions.

About working for us

Our focus is to ensure we're inclusive every day, building an organisation that reflects modern society and celebrates diversity in all its forms.
As an inclusive employer, we offer Workplace Adjustments for colleagues with a disability (which may include long-term health and neurodivergent conditions) where it is reasonable to do so. This could include flexibility with regards to office attendance, location, and working pattern.
If you have a disability, you can also apply via our Disability Confident Scheme (DCS). Through the DCS, we guarantee to interview a fair and proportionate number of applicants with a disability . click apply for full job details