James Fisher and Sons plc
Head of Enterprise Applications and Data Enablement
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Permanent position UK based – Hybrid working
The Role
At James Fisher, we see IT as central to unlocking the speed, agility, efficiency and differentiation needed for our organisation to compete and win in its core markets. Realising this ambition is an ongoing journey - modernising our foundations, unifying and digitising processes, and continually applying emerging technologies to improve how the business operates and performs.
James Fisher is part-way through a major IT Transformation programme that will deliver a federated IT operating model, a target enterprise architecture, an integrated IT investment process and a group-wide project governance framework. The Head of Enterprise Applications & Data Enablement will join at the point where design and early implementation are defined, and will take ownership of completing the implementation, building out the team, and transitioning the function into steady-state operation. Beyond that initial set-up, the role is expected to lead substantial in the transformation of the application and data estate including the introduction of new application, integration and data capabilities that do not exist on the James Fisher landscape today alongside the ongoing modernisation, simplification and continuous improvement of what is already in place.
The Head of Enterprise Applications & Data Enablement (EADE) is a senior leadership role within the IT Function and a permanent member of the IT Senior Leadership Team. Reporting to the Chief Information Officer (CIO), the role is accountable for strategic direction, day-to-day operation and continuous evolution of our applications and integration capabilities, data platforms, engineering toolchains and application-related operational practices. It also defines SDLC, Change, Release and Deployment standards. The role does not own business data or its business use; it owns the platforms, technical standards, tooling and operational practices that ensure data is managed reliably, securely and is accessible for business use.
The scope of this role will be global and groupwide, encompassing:
- 3 Divisions (Maritime Transport, Energy, Defence) and Group Functions,
- 77 sites across UK, Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Australia,
- 2000 employees (plus contractors).
Key Duties And Responsibilities
Leadership of Enterprise Applications, Integrations & Platforms:
- Lead enterprise application operations across custom, COTS, SaaS and cloud-native systems, ensuring availability, reliability and performance.
- Oversee enterprise integration operations, ensuring APIs, middleware, event streams and messaging services run securely, consistently and efficiently.
- Run enterprise platforms that support development, deployment, data engineering and analytics workloads.
- Maintain the federated model for application and data enablement, ensuring a clear, consistent split of central vs. divisional responsibilities.
- Provide senior-level direction and escalation for platform and application incident response, recovery and problem management.
Lifecycle, SDLC & Change Governance
- Govern the lifecycle of all application types (custom, COTS, SaaS, cloud-native) across development, configuration, operations, integration and retirement, maintaining clarity of ownership, lifecycle states, rationalisation opportunities and technical debt.
- Own the technical SDLC - including environments, automation, toolchains and lifecycle controls - in partnership with Digital product development teams.
- Define, maintain and evolve release and deployment standards, including automation, approvals, traceability, rollback and auditability.
- Run the enterprise governance forums that ensure application and data platforms remain compliant with evolving technical, architectural, security and operational guardrails, including standards for safe AI/ML adoption.
- Ensure operational alignment with Architecture & Projects (governance), Cyber (security, IAM/PAM) and Infrastructure & Service Management (operational execution).
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Platform, Tooling & Operational Enablement
- Own and operate the tooling ecosystem supporting development, integration and data processing - including CI/CD, build/test automation, code repositories, environment orchestration, integration tooling and configuration management.
- Maintain observability and telemetry tooling - including discovery/inventory, logging, metrics, tracing, application and integration performance monitoring, capacity and reliability analytics.
- Operate and maintain enterprise data platform capabilities including ingestion pipelines, transformation processes, data quality tools, metadata and lineage services, catalogue tooling and analytical storage – ensuring data is managed reliably, securely and in a way that supports business use.
- Provide and maintain the platforms, tools and controlled environments for analytics, data science, reporting, forecasting, simulation and early-stage AI/ML exploration.
- Ensure operational processes, tooling and environments remain effective, well-maintained and aligned with Digital delivery practices where appropriate.
- Define and evolve the future-state capabilities, standards and technical patterns required across application, integration, engineering and data platforms, ensuring the EADE estate remains scalable, secure, interoperable and fit for future business needs.
Transformation, Simplification, Continuous Improvement & Innovation
- Maintain a rolling roadmap for the modernisation, convergence and transformation of applications, integration and data platforms. This roadmap may be achieved via a variety of delivery modes as appropriate to the change in question (e.g. continuous product based, project based, etc.) (in partnership with the Head of Architecture and Projects).
- Own EADE investment planning and business case input for major platform, tooling and estate changes, ensuring cost, benefit, risk and implementation implications are visible and decision ready.
- Drive simplification, transformation and operational efficiency through automation, standardisation, modernisation, re-platforming where appropriate, and reduction of duplication across Group and Divisions.
- Maintain high standards of operational quality, release reliability, environment stability, integration robustness, platform health and data pipeline performance measured through clear KPIs.
- Horizon-scan emerging technologies (notably AI/ML, modern data platforms, integration patterns and engineering tooling) and run controlled evaluation and adoption cycles to bring proven capabilities into the estate safely.
- Maintain and evolve the EADE operating model and team roles, responsibilities, skills, sourcing and capability uplift and lead EADE-related transformation initiatives, investment cases and implementation activity as the EADE estate continues to evolve.
This is an opportunity to take ownership of a newly established function at the point where its operating model, platforms and engineering practices are being put on a modern footing. The successful candidate will lead, mature and evolve a clean, well-defined function, with a seat on the IT Senior Leadership Team, partnership with the CIO on IT strategy, and group-wide influence on how applications, integration and data underpin James Fisher's ambitions in Maritime Transport, Energy, Defence and across Group Functions.
What We’re Looking For
You will be confident operating amid complexity and ambiguity along with being pragmatic, structured and outcomes-focused, prioritising value, simplicity and feasibility.
You will be trusted and credible with senior leaders, and technical teams alike.
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Energised and excited by change and transformation.
Passionate about making IT a key strategic enabler and partner to the business while ensuring applications and data are well-managed, integrated, reliable and accessible so the business can innovate, grow, operate efficiently and make better decisions.
Key Skills, Knowledge And Experience
Sector experience in engineering, maritime, defence or energy sectors.
Agile practitioner certification, such as Scrum, Kanban, SAFe or AgilePM, or equivalent demonstrable experience of agile delivery at scale.
Recognised architecture or engineering certification relevant to modern application, data and cloud platforms, such as Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect, or platform architect accreditation for major SaaS and integration ecosystems (for example IFS, Salesforce, Mulesoft).
Significant experience in IT, with experience of a senior applications, data or leadership role.
Experience working in federated or multi-division environments, balancing central standards with divisional autonomy.
Experience leading IT functions or sub-functions through periods of change, maturation and continuous improvement.
Track record of delivering significant transformation in an applications, integration or data context — including standing up entirely new capabilities, replacing or retiring legacy estate, and leading the change through from design into live operation.
Applications, Integration And Data
- Broad application experience across COTS, SaaS, cloud-native and custom-built solutions, including lifecycle management and platform modernisation.
- Hands-on exposure to integration technologies such as API gateways, iPaaS, event-driven messaging and interoperability patterns.
- Experience with data platform capabilities including ingestion, transformation, data quality tooling, metadata, lineage, cataloguing and analytical storage.
- Familiarity with analytics, data science, forecasting, simulation and AI/ML tooling, from an IT enablement, not user perspective.
Operations And Tooling
- Experience operating or maturing SDLC and lifecycle toolchains, including CI/CD, automated testing, deployment automation and environment management.
- Experience running observability and monitoring capabilities, including logging, metrics, tracing and performance diagnostics.
- Experience simplifying fragmented application and data estates, improving transparency, reducing duplication and strengthening governance.
- Ability to review, challenge and guide technical design and tooling decisions, ensuring practicality, scalability and alignment with enterprise strategy.
- Track record of embedding continuous improvement and innovation practices in steady-state IT functions, including measurable uplift in platform health, delivery quality or operational efficiency.
- Experience evaluating and adopting emerging technologies (AI/ML, modern data platforms, integration patterns) into live operational environments through controlled adoption cycles.
Why join us?
- Competitive benefits tailored to the division.
- Opportunities for career growth and visibility across the organisation.
- A supportive, inclusive culture that values your ideas and contributions.
- Work that truly makes a difference in safety, innovation, and global capability.
About Us
James Fisher is a global engineering services company with over 50 years of experience delivering complex offshore energy projects in some of the world’s most challenging environments. We operate across Energy, Defence, and Maritime Transport, leveraging cutting-edge technology and deep expertise to support the full lifecycle of our customers’ assets.
In the Energy Division, we provide safe, efficient solutions across oil & gas and
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