Automation and Transformation Lead

Job Title: Automation and Transformation Lead (Senior Consultant) - R&D

Location: London, hybrid (3 days per week on site)

Duration: Permanent

Start: ASAP

At Pace, our consultants genuinely care about the impact our work has on our customers and their customers alike. We are ‘problem solvers’ who call on our collective experience, knowledge and skills to support customers to access benefits early.

We are reimagining how consulting services are delivered, taking a human-centred approach, and our work is having a material impact on people's lives.

Due to the growth of an ongoing programme of work, we are hiring an experienced Automation and Transformation Lead at Senior Consultant level. This is a customer-facing opportunity for someone who can combine strategic transformation thinking with practical delivery, helping client and internal teams develop more scalable, data-driven and AI-enabled ways of working.

Role:

You will act as a strategic and hands-on operational transformation partner, working across programme, operational and functional teams to diagnose complex challenges and translate them into clear, practical and sustainable improvements.

You will identify and prioritise opportunities to simplify, standardise and improve operations through process redesign, automation, data and AI. From shaping a target operating model to prototyping and implementing tools, workflows and decision-support solutions, you will lead initiatives through diagnosis, delivery, adoption and continuous improvement.

This is not a purely technical automation role. You will need to bring structure to ambiguity, exercise sound judgement about where technology will and will not add value, and build trusted relationships with customer, operational, technical and senior stakeholders.

The role will support the Portfolio Management Office while also contributing to the wider operating model across reporting, governance, planning, approvals, onboarding, knowledge management and cross-functional delivery. You will balance rapid experimentation and implementation with longer-term thinking about adoption, governance, sustainability and scale. This reflects the broader, more strategic remit set out in the revised role description.

Accountabilities of the Automation and Transformation Lead will include but not be limited to:

• Identify opportunities to use AI, automation, data and process redesign to improve complex operational processes, prioritising initiatives according to user need, potential value, feasibility and risk.
• Shape and deliver operational improvement initiatives from initial diagnosis and opportunity definition through to implementation, adoption and ongoing refinement.
• Work closely with customer and internal stakeholders to understand operational challenges, dependencies and evolving requirements, translating these into clear and workable solutions.
• Develop a view of improved or target ways of working, connecting individual tools and process changes to the wider operating model.
• Design, prototype and implement practical tools, workflows, automations, dashboards and decision-support solutions that improve coordination, information management and decision-making.
• Strengthen the quality, consistency and reusability of operational data across reporting, governance, planning and delivery, enabling more scalable and insight-led ways of working.
• Work with technical and functional colleagues to evaluate and implement appropriate tools, ensuring solutions are secure, proportionate, maintainable and aligned with data-governance, information-security and responsible-AI expectations.
• Build user adoption through research, rapid testing, iteration, clear guidance and training.
• Track and communicate the impact of transformation initiatives, including reductions in manual effort and rework, improvements in data quality, faster decision-making and stronger organisational visibility.
• Provide credible leadership and constructive challenge across operational, technical and senior stakeholder groups.

Required skills and experience:

• Proven experience delivering operational transformation, process improvement, workflow automation, AI enablement, digital transformation or similar change initiatives in a complex environment.
• Demonstrable ability to identify high-value opportunities to apply AI, automation and data to operational challenges, with the judgement to recognise where these approaches will and will not add value.
• Strong ability to move from ambiguous operational problems to clear, practical and adopted solutions.
• Experience designing and implementing AI-enabled, workflow, automation, low-code/no-code or data-management solutions using tools such as Airtable, Zapier, Make, Power Automate, Notion, Smartsheet, Monday.com, Jira, Asana, ChatGPT Enterprise, Microsoft Copilot or similar.
• Strong process-design and systems-thinking capability, with an ability to understand the interaction between people, processes, data, technology and governance.
• Strong stakeholder-management skills, with the credibility to work effectively across customer, operational, technical and senior audiences.
• Experience working across multiple teams or functions and identifying shared needs, dependencies and opportunities for standardisation.
• Strong analytical skills and sound judgement, including the ability to prioritise improvement opportunities according to value, feasibility, risk and user need.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical and operational concepts clearly to non-technical audiences.
• Comfortable operating at pace in a dynamic environment with evolving priorities and incomplete information.
• Consulting or customer-facing experience, including building trusted relationships and adapting your approach to different organisational contexts.
• Experience working in a PMO, portfolio office, operations, transformation, R&D, innovation, grant-funding or complex delivery environment.
• Experience improving processes relating to reporting, governance, risk, planning, approvals, onboarding, knowledge management or cross-functional delivery.
• Experience developing dashboards, structured databases, self-service tools or decision-support products.
• Familiarity with data governance, information security, access controls, responsible AI, APIs, scripting or lightweight technical development.
• Experience defining or improving target operating models, service models or organisation-wide ways of working.
• Experience leading change adoption, including user research, testing, training and implementation support.

Personal Attributes

• Strategic and practical, able to see the wider operating context while remaining willing and able to build, test and improve solutions directly.
• Curious and improvement-minded, with the confidence to identify where AI, automation, data or process redesign can create meaningful value.
• Self-starting and accountable, with the ability to bring structure to ambiguity and drive work forward with limited direction.
• User-centred, with a focus on creating solutions that genuinely improve customers' and colleagues' day-to-day experience.
• Comfortable challenging established processes constructively, including identifying work that should be improved, automated, standardised or stopped.
• Able to balance pace with sound judgement around data quality, governance, responsible AI, maintainability, adoption and risk.
• Credible, collaborative and confident when working with operational, technical and senior stakeholders.
• Organised and detail-oriented while retaining sight of strategic objectives and the wider operational picture.
• Motivated by the practical application of AI, automation and data to improve how complex organisations operate.
• Willing to undertake local UK travel to client locations as required.

What's in it for you?

• An opportunity to join a high-growth, scale-up consulting firm. We see an opportunity to make a material difference to how clients are served and are on a mission to create environments that thrive for our clients.
• A dedicated focus on your individual personal development, managed through annual performance appraisals, individual personal development plans and our bi-weekly continuous conversations programme.
• Access to Corporate APM membership benefits and additional professional development through a personal training budget, subject to approval of a relevant business case.

Company benefits include:

• Life Assurance*
• Critical Illness*
• Holiday Purchase Scheme
• Electric Car Scheme*
• Cycle To Work Scheme*
• Birthday Day off, Paid Volunteer Day off
• Enhanced Maternity Leave, Paternity Leave
• Work from Abroad policy
• Regular company and team events
• Discounted shopping with ADS Rewards

*Available to permanent employees only.

Your Pace team:

Pace is one of Europe's fastest-growing UK-based management consultancies, transforming the industry with a focus on delivering measurable customer value.

Pace tackles complex challenges across the Legal, Central Government, and National Infrastructure sectors.

By optimising people and systems, we help organisations enhance efficiency, boost productivity, and achieve significant savings in time, cost, and resources.

At Pace, we recognise that we are only as good as our people. Apply today to find out about the great things we're achieving together and the fun we have as a team.

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