Head of IT

Royal College of Radiologists

Hours
35 hours per week

Salary
£70,880 - £78,340 per year

About the Organisation

Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) is the leading professional membership body for clinical radiologists and clinical oncologists, and a registered charity that educates and supports doctors throughout their careers. With over 14,000 members in the UK and internationally, together we’re contributing to advancing each new generation of doctors and helping improve patients’ lives.

We require a broad range of skills and experience to deliver our strategic goal of increasing the clinical radiology and clinical oncology workforce, which will ultimately lead to improving imaging and cancer care services for all. If our strategy and values inspire you, and you are passionate about helping us meet our ambitious goals in an environment that celebrates differences, values diversity, and recognizes that everyone here plays a role in the success of the College, then we encourage you to consider a career at the RCR.

About the role

The Head of IT is the senior lead on all technology-related matters across the RCR and has responsibility for ensuring our IT offer remains current, efficient, and effective. This role implements the agreed RCR IT strategy through effective and efficient operations, ensuring that the RCR’s IT applications, infrastructure, and security are developed and implemented in a way that supports the College’s strategic objectives, working closely with teams across the organisation to deliver this work. The post-holder will also be responsible for maintaining an excellent IT support service to the organisation, ensuring appropriate resourcing, oversight, and policies are in place to protect the organisation and manage risk.

Responsibilities

Resource and Services Management:

• Develop an in-depth understanding of our internal IT and systems infrastructure, advising the business on how it needs to develop to keep up with changing business needs, whilst maintaining an environment that delivers an excellent user experience.
• Define and recommend the optimum way of balancing in-house and outsourced services to meet the business's requirements, developing and implementing a delivery plan to achieve this.
• Advise stakeholders on how technology and applications can support the delivery of RCR and departmental objectives, working with them to develop a business case and operational plan to implement solutions.
• Ensure appropriate IT change processes are in place and advise stakeholders on their application, ensuring they are supported to process contracts and other activities associated with the change.
• Establish and maintain good vendor, contract management, and procurement practices and processes to meet the business's requirements and demonstrate good value and cost-effective service provision.
• Lead and develop the RCR’s programme and change boards to maintain effective oversight of changes to IT applications and digital services.
• Arrange, negotiate, and manage third-party providers to bolster the service delivered as necessary.
• Lead the team in developing, reviewing, and implementing effective and efficient internal processes and procedures to carry out their work.
• Ensure the IT team delivers excellent customer service to all internal stakeholders, demonstrating comprehensive user and application support to agreed standards.

Functional Leadership:

• Support the development and delivery of a 5-year plan for IT applications, services, and infrastructure, ensuring the future IT needs of the organisation will be met. Demonstrate the effectiveness, good value, and sustainability of the plan to secure approval from senior stakeholders. Lead changes to the development of the IT function to support this plan.
• Engage with managers across the business to develop plans to support the essential services used by RCR, including those that sit outside of IT. Ensure the IT team provides professional advice to support changes and improvements to meet RCR’s operational needs.
• Identify, develop, and implement metrics and measures to monitor outputs against both strategic and operational plans to track progress and demonstrate the value being added to the organisation.
• Build and lead internal and external networks to understand any opportunities and threats to the IT services of the organisation, ensuring an effective response.
• Undertake regular horizon scanning to keep abreast of developments and best practice within the IT space, understand their impact within the RCR’s context, and take appropriate action to ensure we are at the forefront of developments and are able to maximise the experience and service delivered.

Risk Management:

• Create and maintain effective IT Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR) plans that ensure the RCR can respond to challenges ranging from minor disruptions to major events whilst continuing to operate within agreed parameters.
• Ensure the RCR’s risk register reflects IT risks and relevant mitigation steps in line with the risk management policy. Ensure that any agreed mitigation steps are executed effectively and in a timely manner.
• Take responsibility for IT governance controls, developing and maintaining activities to ensure the College protects personal data, maintains high standards of data integrity and quality and optimises its use of data as an asset.
• Ensure appropriate IT policies and procedures are in place across the business, including those relating to information security, cyber security, and payment card industry (PCI) compliance.
• Ensure that the IT team operates a timetable to review and amend established protocols, standard procedures, and business processes, and that these are all defined, adhered to, and monitored.
• Work with the team to monitor compliance with IT policies, highlighting and responding appropriately to misuse, abuse, or vulnerabilities

Team Leadership:

• Provide leadership to the IT team, galvanising them around the goals for the function, ensuring they understand their roles within the operational plan, and motivating them to deliver a high-quality service to the organisation.
• Lead, develop, and motivate the team and individuals within it to deliver expected outcomes and seek improvement on a continuing basis.
• Consider the resourcing and capacity requirements for the team in order to meet the long-term plans for the future and develop business cases as appropriate to secure the resources required.
• Performance manage and develop the IT team in accordance with RCR policies and the Scheme of Financial, Contractual, and HR Delegation.
• Lead the IT team in ensuring all staff adopt fully and consistently College-wide processes and policies.
• Recruit excellent individuals into the team to support the delivery of agreed outcomes.
• Promote effective relationships and communication between the IT team and the RCR user community to ensure that the information services continue to meet changing business needs.
• Manage records (attendance and absence) of direct reports using the RCR’s electronic HR system.

General:

• Develop, agree, and manage the IT revenue and capital expenditure budgets to meet agreed business needs, ensuring all IT expenditure is consistent with budget and policy requirements.
• Maintain and manage records in accordance with the RCR’s data protection policy and guidance.
• Maintain documentation on all activities carried out.
• Undertake such other duties appropriate to the level of the postholder’s qualifications and experience as may be required by the RCR from time to time.

Internal Working Relationships:

• Senior Leadership Team – to ensure alignment with RCR priorities, work programmes, and achieve leadership buy-in
• IT Team – working together to provide an excellent customer experience.
• Business and Resources team – working collaboratively to enhance service users' experience
• RCR staff
• Project Management Office (if/when created) – to collaborate on delivering small change projects and to provide technical insight into business programmes.
• The elected Officers and committee stakeholders – provide project updates, arrange training on new systems, provide guidance and IT support for their work in support of the RCR.

External Working Relationships:

• External contacts
• External platform and infrastructure support providers – manage the business relationship and act as an escalation point to resolve any issues or disputes.
• Use networks of external contacts (eg the Royal Colleges’ IT Managers group) to supplement own professional advice and knowledge relevant to the RCR, professional bodies or other related health charities.

Skills, Competencies & Experience

Knowledge, Qualifications & Experience:

• Demonstrably strong understanding of enterprise technology solutions in a digital world
• Skilled leader and staff manager, able to bring together, motivate, coordinate, and develop a team
• Experience of setting, agreeing, and implementing operational plans for a similar-sized organisation encompassing the whole of IT
• Knowledge and experience of project management theories and systems
• Recognised IT project management qualification

Skills and Abilities:

• Accurate use and understanding of English.
• Demonstrably effective leadership skills, ideally in the context of a business partnership
• Effective interpersonal skills, and the ability to negotiate with and influence colleagues across the RCR and lead and develop teams effectively.
• Strong analytical and evaluative skills to grasp and convey the solutions to problems clearly to different audiences
• Ability to plan and prioritise a substantial programme of work, and handle competing demands

Compensation & Benefits

• Generous Annual Leave Allowance
• Excellent Pension Scheme
• Interest-Free Season Ticket loan 
• Cycle to Work Scheme

Conditions of employment

• You must have the right to work in the UK 

Working locations

• Hybrid model, working in the London office and remotely

How to apply

• Diversity Monitoring Form
• Please send an email to [email protected] with your CV and 1 page of a cover letter, your Full Name, Role, and a completed Diversity Monitoring Form.
• If you consider yourself to have a disability and require a hard copy pack or a different format, for example, large print, please contact the HR team at [email protected]

Interviews

• Interview date: Shortlist interviews are scheduled for 28th and 29th October, and selection interviews (in person) are scheduled for either 5th or 6th November 2025.

Policies

Diversity means better ideas, better solutions, and more innovation. That’s why one of our key priorities is ensuring our workforce reflects our communities. We’re committed to creating an inclusive workforce and working environment for us all to enjoy, where everyone can bring their whole self to work to create change and reach new heights of creativity.

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