IT Core Systems Manager

When we started Kensington we were the first specialist lender to offer mortgages to people the high street turned down. Over 25 years later, we're the UK's leading specialist mortgage lender still blazing a trail offering people the chance to get a mortgage. Where high street lenders see black and white, we've always used our expertise and manual underwriting capability to see the shades in between. In a market where changing lifestyles mean more people are falling outside the traditional mortgage criteria, it's an approach that can make a real difference to people who want to own a property.

It's what we call the Kensington Difference.

Kensington Mortgage Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Barclays Bank UK PLC from 1 March 2023, and the principal activity of the Company is the origination and servicing of mortgage assets. The Company is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority for regulated activities.

Overall Purpose of Job

The IT Core Applications Manager is responsible for managing the day to day operations of business critical Mortgage Platforms- for Mortgage Originations through to servicing and including various 3rd party interfaces to support the mortgage platform.

The role will lead the team whose primary responsibility is undertaking change activities with mixed capabilities whilst maintaining and supporting Production environments.

The role will work with Senior IT Applications Delivery Manager to ensure that resources are aligned across various initiatives and production support activities.

Key Accountabilities

• Overseeing, managing, and developing the day-to-day IT Core Applications operations
• Manage a team of up to 7 analysts and contract staffs, enabling all direct reports to fulfil the requirements of their role by mentoring, coaching and developing them
• Ensure Service availability is maintained through the business continuity plan, production support including incident management and operational readiness for changes
• Ensure the stakeholders are kept informed and updated on BAU/Production incidents and work with the Incident Management team to resolve incidents effectively and efficiently.
• Responsible of system administration support for regular point and patch releases such as Oracle patching
• Be responsible for team's activities on the build, test, delivery and run activities for Change, including functional projects, business change projects and small change.
• Be accountable for ensuring the processes and procedures are in place for the Core Systems team and coach the team to evolve process and adopt best practice.
• Ensure risk incidents are promptly and effectively managed to minimise risk exposure
• Where required manage relationship with 3rd party suppliers by attending weekly and monthly review meetings
• Support Senior IT Applications Delivery Manager for the delivery of projects and workstreams activities
• Engage collaboratively with stakeholders and internal/external customers to provide robust and efficient applications so that Kensington can maximise generation of revenue and operational efficiency
• Assume the role of primary contact for all core applications matters
• Where required take on other activities to enable the Core Systems team to deliver and achieve their objectives

Experience, Knowledge, Skills

• Solid experience of managing a team(s)
• Experience of managing technical experts of varying capabilities as part of IT service management and/or Development team desirable
• Experience in supporting business through technology including stakeholder management
• Experience of both waterfall and Agile lifecycles
• Technical aptitudes desirable but not essential
• Knowledge of Software Development Lifecycle
• Experience of working in a matrix-management environment.
• Experience of working in Financial Services, ideally in the Mortgage Industry
• Excellent written and verbal communication.
• Knowledge of Mortgage services, collections business or other financial services are desirable
• Knowledge and experience of Summit (MSS), Activate, Collect, Laserfiche is desirable

Our employees are critical to our success. We work hard to ensure that Kensington Mortgages is a great place to work. We recognise the difference it makes to our business when people challenge themselves and take advantage of the development opportunities available so we try and support everyone however we can.

We also recognise the fact that people seek work life balance and continuously develop our benefits offering to create an inclusive and supportive culture where differences that exist between us all are recognised, understood and valued.

We offer a number of benefits which can be found HERE

If you want to make a Difference, apply now.