Uws Services Head of Function

Location: Templecombe, United Kingdom

Thales people provide armed forces customers with operational advantage at every decisive moment throughout the mission. Defence and armed forces customers rely on us to deliver the full range of defence mission systems solutions at land, sea, and air. Our platforms extend across the battlespace including Above and Sonar, Electronic Combat, and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems.

Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us. At Thales UK, we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across five major industries; Aerospace, Defence, Ground Transportation, Security and Space. Your health and well-being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you; whether that’s part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

**UWS Services Head of Function**

**Templecombe or Cheadle**

UWS is growing at a rapid pace. Due to the success of programmes within UWS, and specifically SSOP & MSET, and with a portfolio of world leading products both in conventional systems and in new technologies (maritime autonomy), this has led to extensive growth, including in the Services team supporting our projects.

This role is an opportunity to shape the Services (JF07) organisation, develop the skillset within the job family, and therefore contribute to the long term strategy of UWS and Thales. You will be working as part of a team that is being relaunched in one of the most exciting areas of the business.

The UWS Head of services function is a key senior leadership role and a central member of the UWS Services leadership team. This essential, strategic level role has a broad remit, from supporting delivery strategy and direction to development of key capabilities and hands on support and coaching of service delivery teams.

**Key Responsibilities and Tasks**:

- Leadership and management - Leading the Services (JF07) function for UWS UK including people plans covering individual and collective career and succession planning
- Role modelling the Thales Leadership Model behaviours and embedding a strong sense of delivery accountability and a proactive risk management culture at all levels of the team
- Being the UWS process owner for the Services processes and being able to understand and interact with the associated parallel process owners to ensure that Services are delivered effectively. As part of this work co-ordinating with the UWS Services transformation director to identify sub-optimal processes to be improved and then assisting in improving these processes.
- Owning the Services cost centre and managing this day-to-day and providing accurate management reporting/forecasting in line with the agreed multi-year budget (MYB).
- Defining the future MYB requirements for the cost centre including training continuous improvement activities both individual and collective.
- Ensuring the Services function are implementing the Project Management Function skills, such as, leading the creation of Project Baselines and structures through the bid phase of the lifecycle - PBS/WBS/OBS, work package definition, estimating, risk and opportunity analysis and creation of the Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) and utilising best practice working with the UK central services functions and the UWS Bid and project functions
- Ensuring that appropriate KPIs are established and controlled for Project outcomes E.g. On Time Delivery and to support confidence in forecasts
- Liaison with contributing functions to drive quality, cost & delivery performance
- Providing coaching and guidance to the Services team as required and putting a development structure in place to ensure the continuous skills improvement
- Ensuring lessons from previous projects are learned and incorporated; contributing lessons for the wider benefit of the business
- Ensuring that all Service Project activities comply with the relevant Thales Chorus 2 processes [8.1, 5.1 & 5.2], ensuring that the overall programmes operates as ‘one team’ and has a consistency of approach across the various programme management activities, including schedule, cost and risk /opportunity management
- Ability to regularly attend Templecombe, Crawley and Cheadle sites as required

**Skills & Experience**:

- Have a track record of Service Delivery Management and/or PM leadership in delivery of programmes with multiple internal and external interfaces ideally from a services perspective
- Experience of Leading a Function within Thales
- Established team manager with evidence of excellent communication and influencing skills at all levels of an organisation
- Experience and