Digital Transformation Lead

Digital Transformation Lead

£69,852 per annum - Grade 11

Leeds / Hybrid Full time - 37 hours per week

Closing date - 14 June 2026 at 23:55

Please note that the Combined Authority will consider requests for part-time working and/or job share. We currently have a vacancy for a Digital Transformation Lead to join our Change and Transformation Team.

This is a pivotal senior leadership role at the heart of the organisation, responsible for shaping and delivering our digital transformation agenda. You will lead a complex portfolio of multi-year digital and business change programmes, ensuring the Combined Authority develops modern, efficient and digitally enabled ways of working that deliver real benefits for our organisation and the region.

Working closely with senior leaders, boards and partners, you will act as the organisation’s senior digital transformation expert, providing strategic direction, governance and assurance across all digital initiatives. You will lead multidisciplinary teams and external partners to design and deliver innovative, integrated and user-focused digital solutions that enhance organisational capability, performance and public value. This is a unique opportunity to influence change at scale, embed digital capability across the organisation and play a key role in delivering our long-term vision.

A key focus of this role for the first two years will be leading the technology solutions workstream for the Combined Authority’s Bus Franchising Programme, a high-profile, complex and regionally significant initiative. This provides a unique opportunity to shape and deliver the digital infrastructure, systems and capabilities required to support a major public transport transformation, working at pace and scale with a wide range of stakeholders and partners.

Our Offer

· Work your way – From flexible and agile working options, including a generous flexi-time scheme to help you balance your personal life and career.

· Time to recharge – Enjoy 28 days of annual leave (with increases based on length of service), plus all Bank Holidays.

· Free greener travel across West Yorkshire – Cover your commute sustainably with unlimited free bus and rail travel using the MCard (Zones 1–5).

· Secure your future – Benefit from a highly competitive Local Government Pension Scheme.

· Investing in you – Take advantage of fully funded professional development, regular training, and up to 3 paid volunteering days per year.

· Grow with us – Incremental salary progression for most roles and annual cost of living increases.

· Family first – We offer enhanced parental and bereavement leave, plus other family-friendly policies to support you when it matters most.

· Your wellbeing, our priority – Access 24/7 free confidential counselling services and the Headspace app for you and up to 5 family or friends.

· Modern workspace in a prime location – Work in bright, contemporary offices just a 2-minute walk from Leeds Train Station, fully equipped with the latest tech.

The Role

Reporting into the Head of Change and Transformation, your key responsibilities will include:

· Leading and governing a complex portfolio of digital transformation programmes, ensuring alignment with corporate strategy, organisational priorities and long-term capability needs, and overseeing prioritisation, performance, risk and benefits realisation.

· Acting as the organisation’s senior authority on digital transformation, including leadership of the digital and technology workstream for the Bus Franchising Programme, ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, integrated and aligned with enterprise architecture and organisational goals.

· Building and influencing senior stakeholder relationships internally and externally, providing expert advice, challenge and assurance to senior leaders and boards, and driving alignment and adoption of new, digitally enabled ways of working.

Please review the Role Profile for more information about the responsibilities.

About You

You will have the following key skills, attributes, education, and experience:

· Holds a postgraduate degree in a relevant discipline (e.g. digital transformation, information systems or technology-enabled change) or equivalent senior-level experience.

· Significant senior-level experience leading and successfully delivering large-scale, complex digital transformation or technology-enabled change programmes, with clear evidence of measurable organisational outcomes and benefits.

· Proven experience of operating at a strategic level, shaping portfolios, priorities and investment decisions, and providing advice and assurance to senior leadership teams, boards or equivalent governance bodies.

· Strong understanding of digital transformation principles, technologies and delivery approaches, including enterprise architecture, digital platforms, data and analytics, and agile or hybrid methodologies, and how these enable organisational change.

· Demonstrable ability to lead and develop multidisciplinary and/or matrix-managed teams, and to influence and engage senior stakeholders and partners, communicating complex information clearly and securing buy-in for change across diverse groups.

· Experience of managing significant programme or portfolio budgets and financial oversight, including forecasting, risk management and ensuring value for money.

To Apply

If this sounds like your next role, please complete the application form on our website and tell us within the supporting statement why you would be a great fit for our role and how your skills, knowledge and experience align with the requirements within the Role Profile. Please visit our Advice for Candidates webpage and review the guidance on this page for support in completing your application form.

Further Information

The Combined Authority is passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity. We know through experience that different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative work environment that delivers better outcomes. We welcome applications irrespective of people's age, disability, neuro-divergence, sex, gender identity and gender expression, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, pregnancy or maternity, or other personal circumstances. We have policies and procedures in place to ensure that all applicants are treated fairly and consistently at every stage of the recruitment process, including the consideration of reasonable adjustments for people who have a disability and/or who are neuro divergent. To find out more about inclusivity at the West Yorkshire Combined Authority please visit our dedicated webpage.

Under the Disability Confident Scheme, applicants with a disability are guaranteed an interview, subject to the minimum criteria being met.

Please note that whilst it is our policy to recruit at SP1 for all appointments, which is the salary stated above, each role includes career salary progression, with incremental increases applicable in most cases on an annual basis.