Head of UK COE and Monitoring Hub

DS&I Head of UK Centre of Excellence & Monitoring Hub (Director)

The DS&I Head of the UK CoE & Monitoring Hub is a senior leadership role within Compliance Digital Strategy & Innovation. The role leads the UK Centre of Excellence, acts as the strategic relationship lead for Data‑Led Monitoring (DLM) across the Compliance Leadership Team, and is accountable for delivering scalable analytical and digital solutions in close partnership with our Pune DS&I CoE. This position plays a critical role in aligning digital strategy with Compliance needs while upholding the highest standards of governance, risk management, and innovation.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Relationship Management

Serve as the primary relationship lead for DLM across the Compliance Leadership Team.Build strong partnerships across UK and Europe to align digital strategy with oversight goals.Represent the UK DS&I CoE in regional and global innovation forums.Maintain close working relationships with CTO and CIO partners to stay aligned with enterprise‑wide digital developments.

Centre of Excellence Leadership

Lead and develop the UK DS&I CoE, including AI, analytics, and automation talent.Establish the UK CoE as a hub for digital innovation and AI experimentation.Drive consistency in tooling, methodologies, and governance through close partnership with the Pune DS&I CoE.

Data‑Led Monitoring (DLM) Delivery

Oversee analytical design and build for DLM, ensuring robust and scalable solutions.Collaborate with data science, technology, and compliance teams to deliver high‑quality monitoring capabilities.Leverage offshore delivery teams for build, testing, and deployment of analytical solutions.

Governance & Risk

Ensure all digital initiatives adhere to governance, privacy, and regulatory expectations.Proactively identify and mitigate risks associated with digital transformation and data‑led approaches.

What Youll Bring

Significant senior leadership experience in digital strategy, innovation, or analytics, ideally within financial services or regulated environments.Strong understanding of compliance, risk management, and data governance.Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders and lead cross‑functional teams.Experience delivering complex data and analytics programmes in compliance, oversight, or similar domains.Excellent communication skills and strategic planning capability.Expertise in AI/ML, digital transformation, and data‑led monitoring.Familiarity with European regulatory contexts and experience working with offshore centres, particularly in India.A leadership style that inspires innovation and drives change at scale.

About DS&I

Digital Strategy & Innovation (DS&I) is the strategic engine for digital transformation within Compliance. Our mission is to embed data‑driven oversight, modern analytics, and forward‑looking digital capabilities across the function.

We partner closely with Compliance leaders, Technology, and global DS&I teams to deliver:

Digital strategy and future‑state designScalable AI, automation, and analytics capabilitiesHigh‑quality digital products and monitoring solutionsA consistent, modernised, and innovative user experienceGovernance, tooling standards, and methodological excellence

The DS&I team operates as a global network, with UK and Pune Centres of Excellence jointly delivering digital solutions that meet the evolving needs of Compliance and the wider organisation.

Purpose of the role

To lead the development and execution of the bank's Data & Analytics strategy, aligned with the bank's overall business goals and risk appetite, ensuring data is used effectively to drive business growth, optimise operations, and mitigate risks.

Accountabilities

Enablement of Business or Function Unit Strategy through fostering and embedding a comprehensive understanding of how data can be used, bringing thought leadership on best practices and new capabilities to deliver Business outcomes.Adherence to data policies standards and controls and inform this over time, driving Data Quality in support of use cases.Partnership with the Business or Function leadership to lead the definition and prioritisation of data use cases, business data products and their implementation and realisation of benefit.Prioritisation of activity required for Data and Analytics and challenge the overall end to end design and architecture.

Director Expectations

To manage a business function, providing significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Contribute to and influence policy and procedures for the function and plan, manage and consult on multiple complex and critical strategic projects, which may be business wide.They manage the direction of a large team or sub-function, leading other people managers and embedding a performance culture aligned to the values of the business. Or for an individual contributor, they lead organisation wide projects and act as deep technical expert and thought leader, identifying new ways of working and collaborating cross functionally. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions.Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives.Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence.Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate.Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives.Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up-to-date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives.Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations.Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area.Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally.Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions.Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.

All Senior Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.