Automation Lead: Development and Delivery
WORLD CHANGERS TOGETHER
Job purpose
Want to make a real difference at the University of Glasgow? We're looking for someone eager to improve the staff and student experience, playing a key part in our mission to deliver service excellence. If a dynamic and forward-thinking team sounds interesting, then our automation service is a place for you. Our goal? To spot areas we can make better, use automation to bring about real improvements, and help our team focus on the most important tasks—pushing the university towards greater innovation and quality.
Join us as we are embarking on the next phase of our service as we grow and continue to develop our Centre of Excellence, designing the way to a smarter, more effective future, changing how the university works for the better. Want to know more, then reach out for an informal conversation:
Gregor Lowther at gregor.lowther@glasgow.ac.uk.
As Automation Lead: Development and Delivery, you will play a pivotal role in designing, developing, and implementing automated solutions to reduce manual, repetitive tasks across the University. You will work closely with teams to lead colleagues through the development lifecycle of an automation solution to ensure solutions meet business requirements and are implemented to a high standard.
You will support the day-to-day management of the automation development team by prioritising the development team’s work pipeline, making sure delivery is to a high quality and resolving or escalating issues as required. You will collaborate with the other Automation Leads to deliver an outstanding service across the automation journey for our stakeholders.
Main duties & responsibilities
Stakeholder Engagement & Collaboration
- Collaborate with stakeholders to identify automation opportunities and understand business requirements.
- Deploy good interpersonal skills including negotiating, motivating, influencing, coaching, and building credible relationships with stakeholders.
- Translate business requirements into innovative, robust and secure automation solutions to reduce manual effort for business teams.
- Manage staff within the Automation Service either directly or through matrix management; leading team development, mentoring new team members on best practices and development techniques
- Communicate with vendors on software related issues; suggests improvements and collaborates with other users in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) community.
Design, Development & Delivery
- Design and develop Automation solutions using industry-leading tools such as UiPath (preferred), Blue Prism, Microsoft Power Platform.
- Build, test, and deploy automation workflows to automate repetitive tasks and processes.
- Provide technical expertise and support to ensure the successful implementation and maintenance of RPA and other Intelligent Automation solutions.
- Complete Automation Design Documentation to a high standard to accurately document a developed process and ensure all associated documentation across the design and delivery lifecycle are completed to a high standard.
Quality & Standards
- Implement and adhere to best practice and University standards for all work including: the automation development lifecycle, documentation, testing, security controls, data protection and data integrity.
- Responsible for the structure and development of peer review of solution designs.
- Ensure quality and security measures are in place through implementing standards and frameworks.
Delivery
- Plan and coordinate automation projects from inception to completion, ensuring they are delivered on time and within scope. Ensuring sequencing and backlog are aligned to automation prioritisation.
- Coordinating the automation development team, providing direction, support, and coaching.
- Allocate tasks, manage priorities and ensure the team works efficiently to meet delivery goals.
- Create and maintain delivery plans for reporting and service management.
- Engage with stakeholders across the University to design automations, manage expectations, and ensure that automation solutions align with business needs. Communicate project updates and facilitate collaboration between teams.
Knowledge and qualifications
Essential
- Either: Ability to demonstrate the competencies required to undertake the duties associated with this level of post having acquired the necessary professional knowledge and management skills in a similar or number of different specialist roles. Or: Scottish Credit and Qualification Framework level 9,10 or 11 (Ordinary/Honours Degree, Post Graduate Qualification), or equivalent, including being professionally qualified in relevant discipline, with a broad range of professional experience in a management role(s).
- Knowledge of deploying automation technologies to design business solutions and process improvements, and of monitoring and developing automation technologies.
- UiPath Certified Professional Automation Developer Professional status.
- Expert understanding of current and emerging automation technologies and how these can be used to solve business problems.
Desirable
- Knowledge of using UiPath Robotic Enterprise Framework (REFramework) to implement best practice in logging, exception handling and application initialisation.
- Experience of Power Platform development and delivery.
Skills
Essential
- Demonstrable ability to lead and quickly understand and digest business process to conceptualise as an automated solution.
- Effective communication and presentation skills to interact with the wider Automation Service, business teams and central functions.
- Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to establish effective working relationships.
- Ability lead testing and debug automation scripts, using automated and manual methods, to ensure they work as intended.
- Ability to lead and design UAT.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to identify automation opportunities and design effective solutions.
- Ability to plan tasks and workload using an Agile approach to deliver an automation implementation within agreed timescales.
- Able to explain technical concepts and analyses clearly supporting the team to translate business objectives into actionable solutions.
- Demonstrable experience of identifying and communicating technical infrastructure requirements.
Experience
Essential
- Experience working as a lead automation developer.
- Experience managing the delivery of software solutions including planning tasks and monitoring progress.
- Significant experience of working with automation technologies to deliver complex automations.
- Practical experience of managing the automation lifecycle complying to the best practice standards.
- Experience deploying Automation solutions using a variety of tools including;
- Automation tools (UiPath, Blue Prism, Microsoft Power Platform or similar)- SQL to manipulate data tables- Using and integrating solutions using an Application Programming Interface (API)- MS Azure
- Experience of deploying solutions using DevOps methodology or similar.
- Experience in using version control systems and CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Azure DevOps, Git) to manage code versions and changes.
- Demonstrable experience of identifying and communicating technical infrastructure requirements.
- Experience of working in fast-paced, project-oriented work environment.
- Experience of leading and managing teams.
Desirable
- Experience of a Higher Education environment.
Campus development plan
Our Vision
Over the next 10 years, the major investment will expand our campus footprint by 25%, creating a new urban quarter with the University at the heart of a revitalised west end. This is the largest development since the creation of the original campus in 1870.
This is a unique opportunity for a University to extend the boundaries of its historic core in a central city location. It will create:
- New learning and teaching facilities
- Refurbishment and repurposing of existing iconic buildings for specialist uses
- Identification and design of social spaces that support the student and community experience.
The expansion of our Gilmorehill campus into the 14 acre, former Western Infirmary site will transform the West End of Glasgow. The Masterplan for the site will incorporate:
- New learning and teaching facilities supporting our students and making sure they get the best in modern teaching and learning styles and approaches
- Creation of a Research Hub, housing large-scale multidisciplinary projects and incubator space for spin out collaborations with industry. This will encourage further innovation development
- New public cycle and pedestrian routes and a new central square which will link Byres Road to the up-and-coming cultural quarter for the West End, with new links to Kelvingrove and the newly-refurbished Kelvin Hall
- Refurbishment of five listed buildings: The Chapel, the Outpatients building, the Macgregor building, the Tennent Institute and Anderson College
- Commercial opportunities, including a hotel, restaurant, bars and cafes
- The state of the art Learning and Teaching Hub adjacent to the Boyd Orr building on University Avenue will be completed next year.
Find out more
Living in Glasgow
A UNESCO City of Music, a vibrant arts and culture scene, a food-lover’s delight, and a shopper’s paradise. Just some of the highlights of the ‘friendliest city in the world’. As well as that accolade by the Rough Guides poll, Glasgow has also been named a must visit destination by publications including the New York Times, The Guardian, and Wanderlust.
Music
The city hosts an average of 130 music events a week catering for every taste; from rock to rap, and classical to country. Glasgow also has a world class club scene playing host to some of the world’s top DJs.
Shopping
Outside of London’s West End, Glasgow is frequently voted the best place for shopping in the UK. A must-visit destination for any shop-a-holic, it houses high street chains, international designers, and independent retailers. The West End, home to the University of Glasgow, is bustling with vintage fashion, vinyl stores, and second-hand bookshops.
Arts and Culture
Glasgow’s arts scene has gone from strength to strength, and is the base for five internationally renowned performing arts companies including the National Theatre of Scotland and Scottish Ballet. The city has several world-class museums, which are free to the public, and the city’s architecture is a work of art in itself.
Food and drink
You can be in Glasgow and taste the world with its many diverse restaurants, cafes, and bars. And if you’ve yet to sample the delights of haggis and whisky, Glasgow is the place to be.
The City and Beyond
Glasgow has all the opportunities and excitement of a big city but its compact size means you can quickly travel from one vibrant district to the next. You could be relaxing in one of its many parks, before shopping in the quirky West End, and then dancing until the wee small hours in the Merchant City.
And when you fancy getting out of the city you can reach the stunning Loch Lomond in just 30 minutes, climb one of our many breath-taking Munros, play golf at one of Scotland’s many world-class courses, visit one of our ancient castles, or go further North and search for Nessie! Scotland has also just been named the world’s most beautiful country by Rough Guides.
Relocating to Glasgow
Choosing to relocate to Glasgow is a big decision. There are numerous things to be considered, such as the costs of moving, the cost of living, and where exactly to relocate to. We have created two guides to aide you in the decision making process.
Find out more on relocating to Glasgow at the below link:
WORLD CHANGERS TOGETHER
WORLD CHANGING GLASGOW 2025
Our outstanding disciplinary breadth and expertise has enabled us to make world-changing advances in fields as diverse as medicine, physics, linguistics, public policy and global development.
The key to our success is our talented staff and students pushing back at the boundaries of knowledge and understanding together.
Our World Changers Together strategy recognises the fundamental importance of a culture of open cooperation: not just as colleagues and mentors or students and teachers, but as a community of discovery that reaches beyond its walls and draws inspiration and strength from its connections and partnerships worldwide: excellence that's part of something bigger. The strategy is articulated across three themes:
COMMUNITY
- People centred, globally engaged
CONNECTIVITY
- Collaboratively minded, digitally enhanced
CHALLENGES
- Solution focused, impact oriented
Find out more
How to apply
Full details of the role and how to apply can be found by visiting our website:
The closing date for applications is 7 October 2024.
Terms & Conditions
Salary will be Grade 8, £48,350 - £56,021 per annum.
This post is full time and open ended.
As part of Team UofG you will be a member of a world changing, inclusive community, which values ambition, excellence, integrity and curiosity.
As a valued member of our team, you can expect:
A warm welcoming and engaging organisational culture, where your talents are developed and nurtured, and success is celebrated and shared.
An excellent employment package with generous terms and conditions including 41 days of leave for full time staff, pension - pensions handbook https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/payandpensions/pensions/, benefits and discount packages.
A flexible approach to working.
A commitment to support your health and wellbeing, including a free 6-month UofG Sport membership for all new staff joining the University https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/staff/healthwellbeing/.
We believe that we can only reach our full potential through the talents of all. Equality, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of our values. Applications are particularly welcome from across our communities and in particular people from the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community, and other protected characteristics who are under-represented within the University. Read more on how the University promotes and embeds all aspects of equality and diversity within our community https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/humanresources/equalitydiversity/.
We endorse the principles of Athena Swan https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/humanresources/equalitydiversity/athenaswan/ and hold bronze, silver and gold awards across the University.
We are investing in our organisation, and we will invest in you too. Please visit our website https://www.gla.ac.uk/explore/jobs/ for more information.
It is the University of Glasgow’s mission to foster an inclusive climate, which ensures equality in our working, learning, research and teaching environment. We strongly endorse the principles of Athena SWAN, including a supportive and flexible working environment, with commitment from all levels of the organisation in promoting gender equity.
Our values
The future holds innumerable challenges for our sector, our society, and our world. We will have to adapt and change what we do and what we offer if we are to navigate these successfully. Our strategy and approach may evolve as the landscape changes, but our values will remain constant: a fixed point of certainty in uncertain times.
We have identified our values in consultation and partnership with our staff and student community. Living and upholding these values will ensure that we remain true to the spirit of our community and ourselves:
Ambition and Excellence
- We strive for excellence through our work
- We defend academic freedom globally
- We recognise and celebrate shared success
- We have an unrelenting focus on development
Curiosity and Discovery
- We innovate and solve problems together
- We lead by influence and example
- We engage with lifelong learning and personal development
- We learn from our mistakes
Integrity and Truth
- We uphold honesty, integrity and fairness
- We share our work widely and generously
- We do the right thing, not the easy thing - or we don’t do it
- We take responsibility
An Inclusive Community
- We are one Glasgow team, and we care for and respect one another
- We advocate for diversity and believe in variety as a vital part of a healthy university
- We champion education as an engine for social progress
- We practise and advance sustainability