Application Support Lead

Balfour Beatty is looking for an Application Support Lead to take ownership of our HR and Payroll application landscape. In this pivotal role, you'll ensure the stability, compliance and performance of the systems that underpin how we pay, develop and support our people across Balfour Beatty. You'll lead a team of skilled analysts, providing technical direction, guidance and hands-on expertise to keep critical services running smoothly. Working closely with HR, Payroll and wider Business Systems stakeholders, you'll drive improvements, resolve complex issues and shape a reliable, efficient and future-fit application environment. What you'll be doing

• Lead, mentor and develop a team of HR/Payroll Application Analysts, building a high-performing, service-focused team.

• Oversee second-line support for HR/Payroll systems, ensuring timely resolution of incidents, service requests and enhancements.

• Deliver clear, proactive communication to HR and Payroll teams, ensuring visibility of risks, progress and change activity.

• Manage system compliance, ensuring applications meet legal, statutory, tax and audit requirements.

• Coordinate the scheduling and deployment of patches, upgrades and annual statutory updates.

• Drive continuous improvement by identifying opportunities to optimise system functionality and streamline processes.

• Support the definition, testing and delivery of enhancements, change requests and new features.

• Act as a trusted technical advisor to HR, Payroll and business stakeholders, representing HR/Payroll systems in cross-functional forums.

• Liaise with third-party suppliers to progress fixes, roadmap discussions and platform improvements.

• Provide escalation support and guidance for complex, cross-functional technical issues.

• Strong understanding of HR & Payroll processes within Oracle E-Business Suite (ideally R12).

• Hands-on experience with Oracle HR, Payroll, OTL, SSHR and related modules.

• Proven experience with forms customisation and Oracle Reports.

• Ability to analyse and troubleshoot PL/SQL logic, concurrent programs, fast formulas, workflows and flexfields.

• Confident in performing data investigations using SQL.

• Experience supporting or leading an application support function with complex issue resolution.

• Ability to manage statutory updates, payroll cycles and time-critical deliverables.

• Calm, methodical and resilient under pressure.

• Strong stakeholder communication and relationship-building skills.

• A collaborative leader with a continuous improvement mindset.

Why join us? As if contributing to and supporting work that makes life better for millions wasn't rewarding enough, we offer a full range of benefits too. You'll have the freedom to shape the package that's right for you and your life. Here are some of our key benefits:

• Smart working, giving you more flexibility such as staggered start and finish times, with up to 40% remote working, where roles allow.

• 25 days paid annual leave (pro rata)

• Family friendly policies which include 28 weeks full pay for maternity/adoption leave and four weeks full pay for paternity/partners leave

• Pension, share incentive plan, volunteering leave, recognition schemes and much more…

Balfour Beatty Group Enabling Functions are Legal, Finance, IT and Procurement, Communications, Health Safety and Environment, HR and Sustainability. Together, they support delivery of our Build to Last strategy whilst improving efficiencies and standardising our approach, systems and processes. Diversity and inclusion At Balfour Beatty we believe that diversity and inclusion are essential components of any successful, happy workplace. Through our Value Everyone Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and Action Plan, we are growing our diverse workforce and developing our inclusive culture where everyone is able to thrive and reach their full potential, regardless of their identity or background. To find out how we are making this a reality, visit To help and support us with our desired commitment to create an inclusive culture we are members of WISE, enei, Business Disability Forum and the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers (AFBE). In 2020, we signed the Audeliss and Involve Open Letter to demonstrate our commitment to taking key long term and sustainable actions on Black Inclusion. Balfour Beatty is also a Gold Award holder in the Ministry of Defence 'Employer Recognition Scheme' and actively encourage applications from Armed Forces personnel, veterans and reservists. As a Disability Confident Employer, we are committed to working with people who have disabilities and long-term health conditions to remove barriers for them in obtaining employment. We are also committed to offering applicants with a disability an interview if they meet the minimum requirements for the role. For more info, visit: We are looking to continually improve our resourcing process and ensure that it is fair and inclusive for all. If you have any feedback on the process, please share this with us at