St John Ambulance
Head of Digital Portfolio
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Head of Digital Portfolio
Permanent/Hybrid
Salary: £66,000 - £71,000
Closing Date: 12/09/2026
Our offer to you
We pride ourselves in being a great place to work, providing a supportive culture with opportunities to grow and develop your career, achieve a healthy work life balance and to be recognised for the great work you do. You will receive:
- Competitive salary and pension scheme
- 33 days holiday (inclusive of bank holidays) - increasing to 38 days over 5 years
- Hybrid, Flexible working
- Cycle to work scheme
- Electric Vehicle Scheme (subject to terms)
- Health and Wellbeing portal – access to financial, health and wellbeing support and an Employee Assistance Programme
- Discounts – you will have access to Blue Light and NHS Discounts as well as discounts on mobile phones, gym membership, cinema tickets, restaurants, holidays and shopping
About Us
This is a fantastic opportunity to join a team of over 1,100 employees and over 20,000 volunteers, united by our goal of saving lives through essential first aid services, training and campaigning. As a charity with rich heritage and a long history of serving humanity, we are proud of our past and excited about creating a healthier, safer, more resilient future.
St John Ambulance works at the heart of communities, supporting and enabling them to access and receive physical and mental health first aid. We do this through developing and providing effective community response and outreach services (e.g. Ambulance response) and using our longstanding expertise to empower people with vital clinical skills and the confidence to use them (e.g. our Volunteers and Community Advocates, and Young Responders programmes).
Job Summary
The Head of Digital Portfolio is accountable for the effective management and delivery of the organisation’s digital and technology portfolio, ensuring that projects are prioritised, appropriately resourced, budgeted and delivered to a high standard. The role is responsible for management of project (capex) spend across the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) portfolio.
The role provides leadership across technical project and programme delivery, product management, business analysis and demand/resource planning, creating a joined-up approach from initial demand through to delivery and benefits realisation. As part of the wider DDaT Leadership team, the role will establish and maintain strong delivery disciplines, ensuring that projects and programmes are governed effectively while retaining a focus on outcomes and benefits.
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The postholder will ensure that the digital portfolio is aligned to organisational strategy, that investment and resources are focused on the highest-value priorities and that delivery risks, dependencies, capacity constraints and bottlenecks are identified and addressed early and resources and capacity are deployed as effectively as possible in support of St Johns’ strategic ambitions.
This is a senior leadership role requiring a strong understanding of both technology and business change. The postholder will be expected to understand the organisation’s technical landscape sufficiently well to identify connections and dependencies across the portfolio, challenge assumptions, unblock complex issues and provide credible advice and reporting to senior business stakeholders.
About You
You will bring a strong combination of digital leadership, portfolio delivery and stakeholder management experience, including:
- A recognised project or delivery management qualification, such as APM, PRINCE2 or Agile, or equivalent professional experience.
- Degree-level education in a relevant discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
- Significant experience of leading digital, technology or transformation portfolios within a complex organisation.
- A strong understanding of technology delivery, including systems, applications, integrations and the dependencies between them.
- Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the confidence and credibility to engage, influence and constructively challenge senior stakeholders.
- The ability to bring together strategic priorities, delivery activity and organisational needs to ensure digital and technology investment delivers meaningful outcomes.
About the Role
In this role, you will:
- Lead, motivate and develop teams across project delivery, product management, business analysis and demand/resource management.
- Own and provide strategic oversight of the organisation’s digital and technology portfolio of projects/programmes.
- Ensure that the portfolio is clearly aligned to strategy, priorities and desired business outcomes.
- Support the Product Management Lead to ensure that products have clear ownership, purpose and roadmaps.
- Establish a strong product management approach focused on customer needs, organisational outcomes, value and continuous improvement.
- Establish consistent approaches to requirements gathering, process analysis, options assessment, business case development and benefits definition.
- Ensure incoming demand is consistently captured, assessed, triaged and scoped.
- Establish clear criteria for assessing demand against strategic priorities, value, risk, urgency, complexity and resource availability.
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Please see the job description for more detail (this can be viewed on our website or once you click apply)
We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive high volume of applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.
Diversity, Inclusion, and Safeguarding
St John Ambulance are committed to increasing the diversity of our team and making sure we best reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. At St John, everyone is valued and supported to thrive, we have seven networks including The Armed Forces Network, The Disability & Accessibility Network, The Family & Carers Network, The Heritage & Ethnicity Equity Network, LGBTQIA + Equity, The Multifaith Network & The Women’s Network. We do not tolerate any form of discrimination and engender a sense of belonging for all, by creating an environment of mutual respect, where we value unique differences and demonstrate authentic allyship. We believe passionately in equality, diversity and inclusion.
St John Ambulance is proud to be a signatory of the Armed Forces Covenant. We are committed to supporting current and former members of the Armed Forces, reservists, veterans, cadet force adult volunteers, and military families, ensuring they are treated fairly and are not disadvantaged in their recruitment or employment with us.
St John Ambulance is committed to safeguarding and we promote safe recruitment practice. Therefore, all successful applicants will undergo pre-employment checks, including DBS Clearance, as part of the onboarding process, if applicable to the nature of the role.
Please note: St John does not accept speculative CVs and will only review CVs sent in application for an advertised vacancy.
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