Managing Consultant - Solutions Architect

We are committed to listening, learning and improving on our approach to ensure these principles remain at our heart, helping us all to thrive.

Job overview

South Central and West (SCW) is a leading provider of transformation and consultancy services across health and social care at a national, regional, and local level. The Transformation team provides high quality, expert support to NHS organisations and partners to manage, analyse and improve performance, to transform the way services are provided for local populations.

Our customers include NHS England, ICSs/ICBs, provider trusts, general practices, and numerous social care, community care, and voluntary sector organisations.

If you are passionate about transforming health and care and have the desire to become part of our team, we have an exciting opportunity for you to join us.

The primary aim of the Solutions Architect is to provide technical leadership to solutions architecture projects/assignments for one or more clients, or a single more complex area. The Solutions Architect will build relationships with senior stakeholders, be proactive in identifying opportunities, support multiple architecture projects or programmes and find emerging technologies and approaches.

This role can be delivered in a flexible hybrid way with any travel, site visits or meetings arranged by agreement on a very occasional basis

• Able to provide and receive highly complex, sensitive or contentious information where highly developed negotiating and influencing skills are required
• Able to negotiate on difficult and controversial issues including performance and change with a range of stakeholders
• Able to give formal presentations to large groups of stakeholders using a range of presentation tools
• Able to manage stakeholder expectations and host, or mediate discussions about risk, complexities and programme/project constraints
• Strong stakeholder management skills at all levels. Creatively combining formal and informal communication channels in order to achieve the desired results
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills to support evidence based change including being able to systematically follow, review and analyse data
• An innovative and strategic thinker, able to define and identify required data to support successful implementation of business change activities
• Advanced IT and keyboard skills on a range of systems including e.g., MS Office and other software systems
• Ability to make decisions autonomously on difficult issues, working to tight and often changing timescales and within financial constraints
• Able to plan and prioritise own work effectively across a range of complex activities and direct the activities of others, changing plans as required

Working for our organisation

This role sits within the Transformation Directorate, which has approximately 250 people working across a range of professional disciplines within the transformation and consultancy space. The post holder will be allocated a Career Development Manager to support them pastorally and to support them on their career journey and they will report into an Assignment Manager for each project they are assigned to.

The post holder will play an essential part in the effective delivery of impactful projects and consultancy assignments across health and care. We are an inclusive and diverse team and collaboration is at the heart of how we work. The team has grown rapidly over the last couple of years in response to increasing customer demand and due to the committed and hard-working nature of the team, for which personal development is important.

The post holder will share the ethos and values of SCW and will be able to bring the skills, experience, and subject matter expertise they have developed in their career, to support the team to deliver quality services.

This role will involve travel across the South of England and potentially further afield.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please refer to the job description and person specification for further details and information regarding this role.

If you do experience a delay in the shortlisting stage of the recruitment cycle, please bear with us while this process is completed, and contact the named contact if you have any questions.

Applicants should be aware that you may not be eligible for skilled worker sponsorship if you apply for this post. If you require sponsorship, please ensure you have checked your eligibility viahttps://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/your-job or alternatively, please contact us via email on [email protected] to confirm the requirements of sponsorship can be met.

Person specification

Values & Behaviours

• Patient First – Customer Excellence
• Aspirational
• Collaborative
• Insightful
• Respectful

Education

• Educated to masters level or equivalent level of experience of working at a senior level in specialist area; equivalent experience needs to be demonstratable leadership / delivery of significant transformation programmes
• Evidence of post qualifying and continuing professional development
• PRINCE 2 Practitioner
• Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) Practitioner

• Member of relevant professional body

Knowledge & Experience

• Demonstrable success in the planning and delivery of complex, multi-stakeholder significant transformation programmes.
• Minimum of five years’ experience of managing and motivating a team and reviewing performance of the individuals.
• Comprehensive experience of the use of project principles techniques and tools such as Prince 2 and programme management principles using Managing Successful Programmes
• Demonstratable ability to manage budgets, involved in budget setting, bid building, achieving financial targets and working knowledge of financial processes
• Demonstratable senior management level experience within a health and care setting; this can be within the Public Sector or a Commercial Environment
• Minimum of five years’ experience of leading significant transformation programmes of work; this can include products and projects as well as programmes of work.

• A thorough understanding of the health and social care environment and roles and responsibilities within it
• Experienced in leading / delivery of procurements for new programmes of work / new services
• Experienced in delivery of business cases to the support case for investment in complex programmes

Skills & Capabilities

• Must be able to provide and receive highly complex, sensitive or contentious information, negotiate with senior stakeholders/customers and external technology suppliers on difficult and controversial issues, and present complex and sensitive information to large and influential groups/customers
• Negotiate on difficult and controversial issues including performance and change, contractual or financial matters
• Problem solving skills and ability to respond to sudden unexpected demands
• Must be able to prioritise own work effectively and be able to direct activities of others.
• Ability to make decisions autonomously, when required, on difficult issues, working to tight and often changing timescales and within financial constraints. Emotionally resilient, able to work in a pressured environment and deliver difficult messages to colleagues and customers.
• Understanding of and commitment to equality and diversity of opportunity and good working relationships.
• Responsible for deciding on the approach needed to implementation policy and change across national and local health and care organisations. They will advise customers and senior stakeholders on how to implement the change and manage delivery programmes to meet the objectives. They will lead and develop procedures to implement complex change across multiple systems and for national programmes which have a significant impact for the public and ensure compliance with the required policies (national and local). The postholder will work closely with customers to advise them on the best approach to achieve success when implementing new policies/procedures and delivering change.
• Demonstrates a strong desire to improve performance and make a difference by focusing on goals
• Demonstrates capability to plan over short, medium and long-term timeframes and adjust plans and resource requirements accordingly.
• Has strong domain knowledge of the requirements that need to be undertaken to deliver service redesign and transformational change.
• Provides and receives highly complex information and has to represent this and communicate for the appropriate stakeholder audience. This includes internal and external stakeholders across a range of health and care organisations at national and local level. Information can be sensitive and/or contentious and needs to be understood and re-presented by using the most appropriate communication channels and formats. The postholder needs to have excellent presentation skills and be able to present to large audience groups. They will need to field and manage questions in relation to new strategies and when imparting highly contentious information to implement a major change. Delivery of information will need to be managed sensitively and appropriately depending on the change to be implemented. There is a need to manage complex relationships which require mature negotiation and diplomacy skills across all stakeholders. The postholder will need excellent writing skills and be able to produce strategy and policy documentation and guidance documents suitable for a range of stakeholders

Office location can be flexible within the SCW estate and will be agreed upon offer of contract.

SCW staff that are in posts considered to be agile will not be expected to attend office space for general working but will be required on occasions to attend face to face meetings and collaborative working sessions that may require travel to their home base or other locations across the estate or customer sites.

Please feel free to contact the Recruiting Manager of this vacancy to discuss further the working arrangement.

Some of our sites have accessible parking provision which is free or paid for work purpose this not contractual entitlement.

We make every effort to contact all candidates to let them know the outcome of their application. However, if you haven't heard back from us within 2 weeks after the closing date, please assume that your application has not been successful.

This is an exciting time to join NHS South, Central and West.

SCW is an NHS support and transformation organisation that helps health and social care organisations deliver the best possible care to people. As partners of choice to more than 200 organisations that support millions of people, our mission is to help deliver the NHS Long Term Plan, improving the health and wellbeing of communities.

We’re supporting clients whose vision and quest for innovation requires us to be flexible, adaptable and open to adventure; giving us the freedom to work in new ways, looking at things from a different angle and challenging the norm.

We are an equal opportunities employer committed to attracting and retaining the best people in order to provide the best possible services to our customers. Our people enjoy challenging, rewarding roles, supporting our customers to improve their local health and care services.

We want our people to fulfil their potential so we offer a wide range of training, opportunities to gain qualifications, as well as access to coaching, mentoring schemes and employee wellbeing and support for a healthy work-life balance.

SCW were selected as an NHS Employers Diversity and Inclusion Partner for three consecutive years 2015-2018 and are now proud to be Alumni of this programme.

If you are successful in your application, we will value your experience, your contribution and we will give you the knowledge to succeed as part of your specialist team and as part of our organisation.

Our values

Insightful: As experts in our fields, we understand the bigger picture and its complexities, we challenge convention, and we uncover opportunities.

Respectful: We treat everyone with respect and hope it will be returned. Recognising and valuing their knowledge, we involve our customers, teams and partners in decisions.

Please note SCW asks successful candidates to upload their Right to Work and Identity documents for digital verification. If you are unable to provide the required documents for the digital verification or do not have access to a smartphone or tablet, this will result in the verification being done face-to-face.