Director, Research CMC and Labs Critical Apps

GSK; Stevenage; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job description

Director, Research CMC and Labs Critical Apps

GSK’s R&D and Digital & Tech teams are working together to accelerate the discovery and development of medicines and vaccines, aiming to help 2.5 billion patients and support our scientists by supercharging R&D with Data. The Quality Engineering and Labs (QEL) function supports about 500 systems that are essential to the R&D process, including 250 systems crucial to Research, CMC, and Labs. Some of these systems impact patient safety and play a critical role in getting medicines and vaccines to patients faster.

Role Overview:

As the Director of Research CMC and Labs Critical Apps, you will report to the Senior Director of Research CMC & Labs Operations and work closely with the Director of Scientific Applications, and other leaders across the Digital & Tech organization. You will lead a team managing a portfolio of critical R&D applications, ensuring operational excellence and service management. Your responsibilities will include optimizing the application landscape, ensuring compliance, and driving automation to improve performance and efficiency.

Key Responsibilities:

This role will provide YOU the opportunity to lead key activities to progress YOUR career, these responsibilities include some of the following…

• Manage ~20 critical applications that support Research, CMC, and Labs, including lifecycle management and new application transitions.
• Develop and implement an automation roadmap aligned with broader organizational goals. This would include a good understanding of the applicability of AI for operations, and how an AiOps platform could be leveraged to ensure that issues are identified and fixed quickly.
• Oversee vendor management to ensure strong resource availability and capability.
• Build strong relationships with CMC, QEL, and other key stakeholders to support service management.
• Ensure compliance with enterprise changes, risk management, and security requirements.
• Manage financial aspects of the portfolio, including technical debt and cloud costs.
• Monitor and report on key metrics like SLAs, KPIs, and efficiency to ensure value for R&D.
• Lead projects to improve and maintain the portfolio, such as addressing security vulnerabilities.
• Foster a development-first mindset, keeping the team up-to-date on the latest technologies.

Why you?

Basic Qualifications:

We are looking for professionals with these required skills to achieve our goals:

• Significant experience in technology delivery and portfolio management.
• Strong ITIL-based service management expertise.
• Direct experience in implementing and managing application performance, observability, and telemetry.
• A thorough knowledge of infrastructure and application architectures and their eco-systems.
• Management and the improvement of risks and controls as they relate to an IT infrastructure.
• Data mastering, data catalogue, and data distribution in supporting end to end business processes.
• Experience managing global projects and teams across different time zones.
• Experience building and managing high-performing teams.
• Knowledge of agile methodologies and how to apply them in a global organisation.

Preferred Qualifications:

If you have the following characteristics, it would be a plus:

• Strong understanding of R&D Digital & Tech, CMC, and Labs operations, and related tech strategies.
• Excellent leadership and communication skills with the ability to influence at all levels.
• Proven ability to deliver insights and recommendations to senior leaders.
• Proven ability to work independently & strong attention to detail.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Proven ability to work well under pressure and within tight deadlines.

Interested in Joining the Team?

Please apply via our online portal providing your CV and Cover Letter.

(Please take a personal copy of the Job Description, as this will not be available online post closure of the advert)

Closing Date: COP 12th April 2025

Hybrid working applies to this role, min 2 days a week onsite; ideally 3.

We create a place where people can grow, be their best, be safe, and feel welcome, valued and included. We offer a competitive salary, an annual bonus based on company performance, healthcare and wellbeing programmes, pension plan membership, and shares and savings programme.

We embrace modern work practises; our Performance with Choice programme offers a hybrid working model, empowering you to find the optimal balance between remote and in-office work.

Discover more about our company wide benefits and life at GSK on our webpage Life at GSK | GSK.

Why GSK?

Uniting science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together.

GSK is a global biopharma company with a special purpose – to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together – so we can positively impact the health of billions of people and deliver stronger, more sustainable shareholder returns – as an organisation where people can thrive. We prevent and treat disease with vaccines, specialty and general medicines. We focus on the science of the immune system and the use of new platform and data technologies, investing in four core therapeutic areas (infectious diseases, HIV, respiratory/ immunology and oncology).

Our success absolutely depends on our people. While getting ahead of disease together is about our ambition for patients and shareholders, it’s also about making GSK a place where people can thrive. We want GSK to be a place where people feel inspired, encouraged and challenged to be the best they can be. A place where they can be themselves – feeling welcome, valued, and included. Where they can keep growing and look after their wellbeing. So, if you share our ambition, join us at this exciting moment in our journey to get Ahead Together.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we are open to all talent. In the US, we also adhere to Affirmative Action principles. This ensures that all qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to neurodiversity, race/ethnicity, colour, national origin, religion, gender, pregnancy, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, age, disability, genetic information, military service, covered/protected veteran status or any other federal, state or local protected class*(*US only).

We believe in an agile working culture for all our roles. If flexibility is important to you, we encourage you to explore with our hiring team what the opportunities are.