As part of its recently published shared services strategy, the government is offering an annual salary of close to £120,000 for a technology professional to “play a lead role in advancing adoption of cloud software and automation”.

The Cabinet Office is currently advertising [1] a vacant post as deputy director, technology – shared services cloud migrations. The successful candidate will be tasked with building and leading a team of cloud and enterprise resource planning (ERP) specialists. 

This team will the “work closely with departments engaged in in-flight migrations to cloud platforms to support and ensure they are taking advantage of best-practice approaches and technology”, according to the candidate information pack. The migration unit will also engage with those departments yet to start the process of moving to the cloud, to help them prepare to do so.

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The deputy director will also be tasked with helping to “form a whole of government view of cloud-migration activity”, as well as identifying innovative products and technologies that could be rolled out in the future.

Applicants must possess at least 10 years’ experience of working with Oracle platforms or “other complex ERP systems”. Experience of undertaking cloud migrations is also required, as are demonstrable leadership and motivation skills.

The Shared Services strategy for government [5] policy paper was published in January. The 10-year strategy includes plans to help the civil service adopt cloud software. This, the strategy said, would mean that tools could be “extended to other departments, enabling wider value to be achieved”.

The policy document also outlined plans [6] to standardise departments on one of three ERP platforms: Oracle, SAP, or a third yet-to-be-identified technology. This last option would be a “cheaper, flexible alternative for smaller departments”, the government said.

In the candidate pack for the deputy director job, Mark Thompson, technology director, Government Shared Service, said: “By enabling the effective and efficient delivery of service, and adopting the latest technology and service models, we will generate value and financial savings. We will improve the user experience of these services, both for professional users and for the many hundreds of thousands of civil servants they support. We aspire to deliver services to them that are as good as government now provides digitally to the citizen, enabling them to focus on their core roles and supporting government priorities.”

Applications for the London-based post are open until 15 June, with interviews scheduled for the week commencing 9 July. The role is expected to come with a salary of between £65,000 and £117,000.