Chief Digital, Data and Technology Officer

Connect2Surrey
Reigate, Surrey, RH2 0AA, United Kingdom
Last month
£1,000 pd
Applications closed

Related Jobs

View all jobs

Data Architect

Triad Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
£75,000 – £80,000 pa Hybrid Clearance Required

Chief Technology Officer - B2B Platform

Clearwater People Solutions London, United Kingdom
£120,000 – £150,000 pa On-site

Principal Solutions Engineer Enablement Manager

Snowflake London, United Kingdom
Hybrid

AI Governance Lead

VIQU IT Recruitment London, United Kingdom
£90,000 – £110,000 pa Hybrid

Senior Data Architect

DVSA.GOV Birmingham, West Midlands (county), United Kingdom
£57,515 – £82,430 pa On-site Clearance Required

Senior Data Architect

DVSA.GOV Oldham, Manchester, United Kingdom
£57,515 – £82,430 pa On-site Clearance Required

Salary

£1,000 pd

Posted
2 Apr 2026 (Last month)

Role Purpose

The Chief Digital, Data and Technology Officer is the Council's principal authority for all aspects of digital, data and technology. The postholder provides independent, system-level leadership and acts with substantial delegated autonomy to shape and deliver high performing services and organisational capability.

The Chief Digital, Data and Technology Officer will:

Set and lead a bold vision for digital, data and technology, ensuring alignment with the Council's strategic priorities leading collaboration at pace and scale to deliver successful outcomes in the context of Devolution and Local Government Reorganisation

Provide influential and visible leadership across Surrey's wider public service system, shaping cross-boundary strategies and enabling integrated, citizen-focused services across multiple organisations.

Champion innovation, emerging technologies and data-driven decision making to transform services, improve outcomes, and strengthen resilience.

Represent Surrey County Council at regional and national levels, influencing policy and investment and positioning the organisation as a leader in ethical, inclusive and future-facing digital and data practice. Leadership & Specific Accountabilities

Corporate & Strategic Leadership

Act as the Council's most senior adviser on digital, data and technology, providing authoritative, independent strategic advice to the Chief Executive, CLT and Members.

Exercise significant delegated authority in determining technology investment priorities, enterprise architecture, data governance frameworks and organisational risk posture.

Shape and continually evolve the Council's long-term digital, data and technology strategy, ensuring it enables large-scale transformation, efficiency, resilience and service redesign.

Lead the Council-wide digital investment portfolio, ensuring coherence, ROI and alignment with corporate objectives.

System-Level Leadership & Cross-Boundary Impact

Provide strong system leadership across Surrey's public sector ecosystem, influencing and enabling shared strategies, interoperable platforms and integrated delivery models across partners.

Lead and/or act as Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) for major multi-agency digital and data programmes with significant financial, operational and citizen impact.

Represent Surrey at regional and national digital, data and cyber leadership forums, shaping policy, standards and funding opportunities.

Technology, Innovation & Transformation

Champion the intelligent, safe and ethical adoption of emerging technologies (including AI and automation), ensuring they drive measurable improvements in outcomes, productivity and service qualityData Strategy, Governance & Capability

Define and lead an enterprise-wide data strategy, establishing consistent standards, ownership, quality and lifecycle management.

Oversee development of a modern data platform enabling secure, interoperable data sharing and advanced analytics across multiple organisations.

Embed strong data ethics, governance and compliance frameworks ensuring lawful, transparent and trustworthy use of data.

Build organisation-wide data literacy and capability to empower staff at all levels.Cyber Security & Risk Management

Provide strategic leadership on cyber security, ensuring robust arrangements to prevent, detect and respond to threats while supporting innovation and operational resilience.

Ensure all digital and data practices meet legislative, regulatory and assurance requirements.Operational Excellence & People Leadership

Lead, inspire and develop the Digital, Data and Technology function, fostering a high-performance culture and ensuring professional standards.

Ensure services are customer-centric, resilient and deliver measurable value.

Oversee third-party supplier partnerships, commissioning arrangements and contract performance.

Ensure digital, data and technology considerations are embedded in business planning, financial strategies and service redesign. External Leadership, Influence & Reputation

Act as the external face of Surrey's digital ambition, developing strategic partnerships with industry leaders, academia, government bodies and national programmes.

Promote Surrey as a leader in digital inclusion, ethical AI, and public sector innovation.

Secure external investment and influence national programmes to benefit Surrey residents. Dimensions

The post will be responsible for oversight and management of Revenue (Opex) and Capital budgets of +£20m. Line Management: Leads teams totalling up to 300 staff across IT & D functions.

Knowledge, Qualifications, Skills & Experience

Significant senior-level experience as a CIO/CTO/CDIO, with proven leadership of a complex, multi-functional Digital, Data and Technology portfolio.

Demonstrable ability to influence and shape strategy across multiple autonomous organisations with differing priorities and governance structures.

Exceptional leadership credibility at corporate and political levels, with strong negotiation and relationship-building skills.

Proven ability to lead and motivate a diverse, hybrid workforce and inspire a culture of innovation and high Connect2Surrey is a trading style of Surrey & Kent Commercial Services LLP - A joint venture between Surrey County Council & Commercial Services Kent Ltd. Connect2Surrey is an equal opportunities Employment Agency & Business. It positively encourages applications from all suitably qualified and eligible candidates

Industry Insights

Discover insightful articles, industry insights, expert tips, and curated resources.

Where to Advertise Data Science Jobs in the UK (2026 Guide)

Where to advertise data science jobs UK in 2026: the specialist boards, communities and channels that actually reach senior and lead data science talent. Data science spans a broad and often misunderstood spectrum — from statistical modelling and experimental design through to machine learning engineering, product analytics and AI research. The strongest candidates identify firmly with specific subdisciplines and are frustrated by adverts that conflate data scientist with data analyst, business intelligence developer or machine learning engineer. General job boards produce high application volumes for data roles but consistently fail to match specialist data science profiles with the right opportunities. This guide, published by DataScienceJobs.co.uk, covers where to advertise data science roles in the UK in 2026, how the main platforms compare, what employers should expect to pay, and what the data says about hiring across different role types.

Data Science Jobs UK 2026: What to Expect Over the Next 3 Years

Data Science Jobs UK 2026: roles, salaries and the trends shaping UK data science hiring over the next three years — from MLE crossover to GenAI workflows. Data science has spent the past decade being described as the sexiest job of the twenty-first century. By 2026, the reality is both more nuanced and more interesting than that label ever suggested. The discipline has matured, fragmented, deepened, and in some respects reinvented itself — and the jobs market has changed with it in ways that create genuine opportunity for those who understand what employers actually want, and genuine difficulty for those still operating on assumptions formed five years ago. The data science jobs market of 2026 is not simply a larger version of what it was three years ago. The generalist data scientist — equally comfortable wrangling data, building models, and presenting insights to the board — is giving way to a more specialised landscape where employers know exactly what problem they are trying to solve and are looking for candidates with the specific depth to solve it. Machine learning engineering, causal inference, experimentation, AI product development, and domain-specific applied science have all emerged as distinct career tracks within what was previously a single, loosely defined profession. At the same time, the arrival of large language models and the broader AI capability wave has both threatened and created data science roles in equal measure. Some of the work that junior data scientists spent their early careers doing — data cleaning, exploratory analysis, basic model building — is being partially automated by AI tooling. But the demand for practitioners who can evaluate AI systems rigorously, apply statistical thinking to complex business problems, and build the data foundations on which AI depends has grown considerably. The candidates who will thrive over the next three years are those who understand where the discipline is heading — which specialisms are attracting the most investment, which technologies are reshaping what data scientists are expected to build and know, and how to position a data science career that will remain valuable as the field continues to evolve around them. This article breaks down what the UK data science jobs market is likely to look like through to 2028 — covering the titles emerging right now, the technologies driving employer demand, the skills that will matter most, and how to position your career ahead of the curve.