Head of Operations, BBC Sport, Technical Team

Technical Operations

Permanent - Full Time

Salford, GB, M50 2QH

BBC PUBLIC SERVICE B'CAST

Job Closing Date: 15/01/2025

THE ROLE

Package Description

• Job Reference: 20012
• Band: F
• Salary: Up to £100,000 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience.
• Contract type: Permanent and Continuing
• Location: Salford, Media City - This is a hybrid role

Please Note: The closing date for applications is 15th January and we anticipate that interviews will be held 28th and 29th January 2025.

We’re happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

• Excellent career progression – the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.
• Unrivalled training and development opportunities – our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.
• Benefits - We offer a negotiable salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 25 days annual leave with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care and gym and much more.

If you need to discuss adjustments or access requirements for the interview process please contact the reasonable.adjustments@bbc.co.uk. For any general queries, please contact: bbchr@bbc.co.uk.

Job Introduction

BBC Sport is responsible for the coverage of the very best of the nation’s major sporting events, from the Olympics through Wimbledon, Match of the Day, Champions league and FA Cup Football. We produce and also commission world class content across TV, Radio, Online, I player and sounds and serve the biggest UK sports audiences with a massive range of content.

BBC Sport Technical Operations work with content, commissioning, production, and creative teams – internally and externally - and in partnership with the broader business, to deliver on the editorial, content, and audience ambitions of BBC Sport.

We are seeking a dynamic and highly capable individual as a Head of Operations in our technical team, to deliver on the editorial, content and audience ambitions of BBC Sport. In this crucial role, you will be instrumental in shaping and delivering the strategy for the function, translating the strategy into implementable operational plans and ensuring faultless execution.

Main Responsibilities

• Working in collaboration with colleagues to devise and implement a comprehensive strategy for BBC Sport, Technical and Operations teams to ensure efficient and effective future operations, whilst improving employee experience.
• Senior technical BBC representative on supplier and partner negotiations, supplier contracting and supplier management, including performance management.
• Actively manage technical and operational delivery, produced by BBC Sport, or in collaboration with Independent productions, including leading projects at sporting events and from base, working with external suppliers and wider BBC teams.
• Proactively manage the Sport Technical and operations team to support BBC Sport as it works to deliver on future ambitions.
• Focus relentlessly on improving the efficiency, capabilities, and relevance of all operational teams in the context of the broader BBC strategic landscape.
• Manage operational costs, recoveries, and assets with a view to maximising utilisation and ensuring that all savings targets and budgets are achieved.
• Collaborate closely with management colleagues across all functions in BBC Sport and the wider BBC.
• Craft and execute a comprehensive culture-improvement plan for all staff, including a particular focus on career development, multi-skilling and succession planning.
• Continue to develop a highly capable, professional, empowered operations leadership team.

Are you the right candidate?

• Extensive experience of operational delivery in a live sport or event delivery environment, with excellent understanding of operational and technical workflows and architecture.
• Outstanding communication skills to provide authoritative advice to production teams.
• Strategic capability with corresponding experience in designing and implementing practical initiatives.
• The ability to move seamlessly between strategy, intricate engineering, and operational detail to extract key themes, risks and opportunities.
• Proven and excellent values-based leadership skills with experience of line managing operational teams.
• Comprehensive supplier management experience of the broadcast market and commercial negotiation.
• Evidence of strategic planning through to operational delivery.
• Extensive knowledge of Sport workflows and cross platform delivery.
• Experience in initiating, defining, and delivering large-scale change programs.
• Strong analytical, planning, assessment, and execution skills.
• Experienced in practical and procedural Health and safety compliance and best practice, in Outside Broadcast environments.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to present information concisely and to negotiate, persuade and influence key stakeholders.
• A commitment to learning, revelling in change and being comfortable with ambiguity.

About the BBC

We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours here.

Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual's unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.

DISCLAIMER

This job description is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.