Salesforce Centre of Excellence (CoE) Lead - Department for Energy Security & Net Zero - G7

Location

Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, London, Salford

About the job

Job summary

The Integrated Corporate Services (ICS) is a shared corporate service. It provides corporate services (HR, Finance, Digital, Commercial, Security and Estates) across the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) and the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT).  

Our team of over 400 professionals will be leading the way in how these functions will be delivered in the future. Our ambition is to be the leading provider of integrated corporate services for government and set the standard for quality, efficiency, and innovation in our field. 

We offer great working benefits including a world-class pension, flexible working options and a career where your learning and development is taken seriously. We are enormously proud to be a Disability Confident Leader employer. We support candidates with adjustments throughout our recruitment process. Information about disability confidence and just some examples of the adjustments that you can request can be found in the reasonable adjustment section below.  

Find Out More 

You can also follow our LinkedIn Careers Page: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/desnz-careers/  

Job description

Join ICS Digital, where innovation meets expertise to create digital solutions. We are a cohesive digital community who work in the open, solving problems together and fostering a culture of transparency and collaboration. Our commitment to user-focused design and data-driven decision-making ensures that we deliver accessible services tailored to the needs of our customers.

We are looking for a Salesforce Centre of Excellence Lead to lead the governance, evolution, and adoption of our Salesforce capability.
Salesforce is becoming an increasingly important part of our technology landscape, supporting core business processes, service delivery, and operational teams.

This role will be accountable for the Salesforce Centre of Excellence, ensuring we invest in the right capabilities, provide appropriate governance and control, and create a scalable operating model that supports both delivery and long-term platform health.

Visit our blog to learn more about us and our work: https://icsdigital.blog.gov.uk/

To find out more about the Government Digital & Data profession visit: https://dsit.pagetiger.com/bzwfhzv/1

Person specification

CoE Vision & Strategy:

• Maintain the vision, purpose, and value proposition for the Salesforce Centre of Excellence 
• Establish Salesforce as a strategic platform rather than a series of disconnected projects 
• Translate organisational strategy into a clear Salesforce platform direction and multi-year roadmap 
• Champion the Salesforce capability internally and build confidence in the CoE model 

Governance & Operating Model:

• Own the operating model for the Salesforce Centre of Excellence 
• Maintain clear governance, decision-making forums, and working groups
• Own the standards and guardrails for solution design, development, release, support, and change 

Roadmap & Prioritisation:

• Own and maintain the Salesforce platform roadmap 
• Establish and run a transparent prioritisation framework for Salesforce demand
• Balance investment across: 
  • Platform capability and sustainability
  • Business change and feature delivery
  • Governance, controls, and technical improvement
  • Adoption, enablement, and service improvement
• Make trade-offs visible and understood across stakeholders

Standards, Quality & Platform Health:

• Maintain standards for configuration, customisation, integration, release management, environments, support, and documentation 
• Ensure consistency and quality across all Salesforce work, whether delivered internally or through suppliers 
• Drive reduction in duplication, unmanaged customisation, and technical debt 
• Promote reuse, simplicity, and long-term maintainability across the platform 

You will also be responsible for Supplier & Delivery Oversight, Adoption & User Experience and Metrics & Value Tracking.  

The above responsibilities are not exhaustive, and the post holders may be required to undertake some additional tasks not listed above, within the remit of their grade, to support the team.

Essential Criteria

• Proven leadership experience in platform governance, product leadership, or enterprise capability management
• Strong experience working with Salesforce or a comparable enterprise platform
• Experience establishing and maintaining governance, standards, and operating models across multiple teams
• Strong prioritisation and stakeholder management skills
• Experience managing demand in a complex environment with competing priorities
• Ability to make trade-offs and challenge demand constructively
• Excellent communication, leadership, and influencing skills 

Desirable Criteria

• Experience establishing or leading a Centre of Excellence or similar platform function
• Experience managing third-party suppliers and delivery partners
• Experience working across product, architecture, engineering, and delivery teams
• Experience improving platform maturity, control, and long-term sustainability 

It is unusual that all candidates will meet all the desirable criteria. If your skills and experience look slightly different from what we have identified and you think you can bring value to the Salesforce Centre of Excellence Lead role and the team, we strongly encourage you to apply. We'd love to hear from you!