Head of Engineering – Healthcare & Life Sciences

Reports to: Head of Delivery (with strong peer relationship to Technology leadership)
Location: Hybrid – expected to work at least two days per week from client offices in Leeds and/or London

Role Summary

The Head of Engineering – Healthcare & Life Sciences is a senior leadership role accountable for setting the engineering direction, standards and technical assurance across Mastek’s UK healthcare portfolio.

The role spans NHS England, DHSC arm’s-length bodies, regulators and private healthcare providers. You will ensure that engineering teams deliver safe, resilient and high-quality digital services in highly regulated, safety-critical environments, while modernising legacy platforms and embedding modern engineering practices.

You will raise the technical bar across the sector, directly influence client confidence and satisfaction, and play a critical role in supporting growth through credible technical leadership, assurance and bid support.

This is a strategic role with hands-on engagement where required.

What You Will Do

1. Provide Sector-Wide Engineering Leadership

• Own and evolve engineering standards, ways of working and reference architectures for healthcare and life sciences.
• Set clear expectations on quality, resilience, security and pace across all health engagements.
• Provide senior technical assurance across live services and transformation programmes.
• Act as a senior engineering counterpart to client leadership, delivery leads and internal stakeholders.

2. Build Modern Engineering Capability

• Embed strong DevOps and DevSecOps practices as standard across delivery teams.
• Develop full-stack, T-shaped engineering capability, including dev-in-test.
• Ensure engineering practices are aligned to NHS clinical safety, information governance and security expectations.

3. Drive Engineering Maturity and Consistency

• Embed CI/CD pipelines with automated testing and quality gates.
• Promote cloud-first, API-driven, microservices architectures where appropriate.
• Create repeatable delivery patterns that can be reused across healthcare accounts.

4. Grow and Develop People

• Hire and retain high-calibre engineers and engineering leaders. Build technical capability in Python, AWS and related technologies.
• Coach and develop technical staff, building a strong and sustainable leadership pipeline.
• Foster a culture of accountability, continuous improvement and technical excellence.

5. Work Closely with Delivery Leadership

• Partner with Delivery Managers to plan capacity and align engineering and delivery plans.
• Intervene early on at-risk programmes, providing technical direction and recovery support.
• Ensure engineering decisions support predictable delivery outcomes.

6. Introduce Emerging Technologies Responsibly

• Champion the safe and appropriate use of AI, automation, low-code and data platforms in healthcare contexts.
• Lead pilots, proof-of-concepts and innovation activities that align to client needs and regulatory constraints.

7. Support Growth and New Business

• Shape technical solutions and delivery approaches for healthcare bids and proposals.
• Support senior client conversations, building trust and credibility.
• Mobilise new teams and establish engineering foundations for new accounts.

8. Build Mastek’s Engineering Brand

• Represent Mastek within the health and technology communities.
• Lead hackathons, innovation days and technical forums.
• Help attract and retain top engineering talent.

What You Will Be Accountable For

• Engineering quality and technical assurance across all Healthcare & Life Sciences engagements.
• DevOps and DevSecOps maturity across teams.
• Development of full-stack, T-shaped and dev-in-test capability.
• Stability, resilience and safety of live health services.
• Reduction of technical risk, defects and legacy debt.
• Contribution to sector growth and repeatable delivery models.

What We’re Looking For

Must Have

• Strong engineering leadership experience delivering complex digital services in the health sector, ideally within the NHS.
• Hands on engineering expertise, with Python as the language on which this expertise has been built.
• Strong cloud experience, preferably AWS.
• Proven experience building and leading DevOps / DevSecOps capability.
• Experience operating in highly regulated, safety-critical environments (e.g. clinical safety, IG, security).
• Strong understanding of GDS-aligned delivery and user-centred design in government services.
• Experience running multiple teams across onshore and offshore delivery models.

Nice to Have

• Experience with AI, data platforms or automation in regulated environments.
• Databricks / Foundry experience.
• Experience supporting large-scale digital transformation programmes in healthcare.

How We’ll Measure Success

• Predictable delivery outcomes across healthcare programmes.
• Strong, sustained client feedback and confidence.
• Mature, self-running engineering teams.
• Measurable uplift in DevOps and DevSecOps maturity.
• Reduction in incidents, defects and deployment lead times.
• Growth in full-stack, T-shaped and dev-in-test capability.
• Expansion of the role’s impact across the wider geography.