About You

We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced engineering leader to join our Not-for-Profit & Education (NPE) Division. Reporting into the CTO and working closely with the NPE MD, Divisional Management Team, and Director of Product Management, you will lead a global engineering team of ~100 engineers, driving the delivery of software solutions that make a real difference to not-for-profit organisations and educational institutions.

Day-to-Day, You Will:

• Sit as part of the NPE Product Development Leadership Team, taking responsibility for the management of software development and delivery across the division, contributing to the achievement of growth and client satisfaction targets. Working closely with the MD and Divisional Management Team, you will take a holistic view to support both Corporate and Divisional objectives.

• Define and communicate a compelling vision and strategy to your engineering teams, ensuring a progressive, reliable, and efficient production capability, aligned to the NPE roadmap and commercial goals.

• Shape and manage the delivery of solutions across the NPE division, formulating pragmatic technical strategies, robust processes, credible and reliable forecasts, team development and progression, and operational excellence. You will form a close working relationship with the NPE MD and Divisional Management Team to enable their commercial goals.

• Apply in-depth understanding of AI engineering tools, AI-enhanced agile software development best practices, customer problems, and collaboration across virtualised and distributed teams to inform decisions and approaches relevant to the not-for-profit and education markets.

• Make a significant contribution to increasing the profitability of the divisional portfolio by developing innovative products and maximising the efficacy of the engineering team. You will hold accountability towards the divisional P&L.

• Work with Product Management to understand the NPE portfolio, contributing to overall product strategy and identifying integration and cross-sell opportunities across the wider Access group.

• Sponsor all functional development projects within the NPE division.

• Take responsibility for the management, development, progression, and operational capability of the divisional engineering teams, including training, appraisals, employee engagement, discipline, recruitment, retention and attrition.

• Lead, motivate, develop and manage the performance of your engineering teams, ensuring they have the skills and support to achieve their potential and meet the needs of the business and its customers.

• Where relevant, contribute to acquisition opportunities, including technical landscape analysis, production process review, technical due diligence, and post-acquisition integration.

Your Skills and Experience Will Include:

• Excellent leadership, motivation, and team development skills, with the ability to cross boundaries and collaboratively drive excellence through positive change. Your cohesive leadership ensures engineering teams are aligned across the division.

• Outstanding communication skills, with the ability to engage effectively at all levels and adopt a flexible, consultative approach with both internal and external stakeholders.

• Experience leading global or geographically distributed teams, including near and/or offshore development centres.

• The ability to think creatively and exploit best practice, emerging technologies, and fast-paced innovation in a way that is relevant to not-for-profit and education sector customers.

• A pragmatic, objective, and resilient approach — able to navigate complexity and divisional contention to the benefit of the wider group, while maintaining production excellence through KPIs and best practice.

• A strong understanding of the software development lifecycle and the ability to deliver complex projects across multiple workstreams to time, budget, and quality.

• Commercial acumen and a sound understanding of agile software development practices in a scaled production environment.

• Demonstrable ability to drive operational excellence and efficiency across multiple teams and locations, effecting change where appropriate to achieve results.

• The ability to collaborate with and influence senior stakeholders to achieve the best outcomes for the division and the wider business.

• An appreciation of the unique needs, procurement cycles, funding constraints, and compliance considerations of not-for-profit organisations and educational institutions is advantageous.