The Continuous Improvement Director will lead the identification, prioritisation and delivery of Group-wide operational improvement and transformation opportunities across the end-to-end housebuilding lifecycle.
Reporting directly to the Chief Operating Officer, the role will work across Group functions, Regions and Divisions, including Sales and Marketing, Customer Care, Commercial, Procurement, Technical and Construction, to improve customer outcomes, build quality, productivity, cost effectiveness and sustainable business performance.
This is a senior role with no direct reports. Delivery will be achieved through executive sponsorship, strong relationships with Heads of Functions and Regional and Divisional leaders, clear governance, named business owners and cross-functional teams.
The role will bring together operational excellence, process improvement, organisation and operating-model improvement, performance improvement, and the use of technology, data, automation and AI to enable change. It will ensure that improvement activity is based on robust evidence, has clear accountability and delivers measurable, sustainable benefits.
Key accountabilities
1. Improvement strategy and priorities
- Develop and maintain an agreed pipeline of priority operational improvement and transformation opportunities aligned to Group priorities.
- Identify opportunities through performance data, operational insight, customer feedback, benchmarking and engagement with Heads of Group Functions and Regional and Divisional leaders.
- Assess opportunities against customer and commercial value, operational impact, strategic alignment, deliverability, risk and investment required.
- Focus activity on material, repeatable opportunities and provide clear reporting on priorities, progress, dependencies, risks, benefits and decisions required across the agreed improvement programme.
2. End-to-end process improvement and redesign
- Lead the diagnosis and redesign of priority processes spanning Group functions, Regions, Divisions, sites or stages of the customer and housebuilding journey.
- Map processes, customer journeys, hand-offs, controls, systems and decision points to identify duplication, waste, delay, failure demand, rework and complexity.
- Use root-cause analysis and structured problem-solving to address underlying causes rather than symptoms.
- Simplify and standardise processes where this creates value, establishing clear ownership, accountabilities, controls, service expectations and measures.
- Ensure proposed changes improve the end-to-end process and do not transfer cost, delay or risk between Group functions, Regions or Divisions.
3. Cross-functional operational improvement
- Sales and Marketing: improve customer journeys, lead and reservation processes, sales-to-build hand-offs, management information and conversion-supporting processes.
- Customer Care: improve communications, case management, defect and complaint resolution, escalation, service recovery and learning from customer insight.
- Commercial, Procurement and Supply Chain: improve demand visibility, supplier processes, commercial hand-offs, workflow efficiency, standardisation and performance information.
- Technical: improve workflow, approvals, information quality, design change, standardisation and interfaces with Commercial, Procurement and Construction.
- Construction and Divisional Operations: improve planning, workflow, operational consistency, productivity, quality, controls and interfaces between sites, Divisions and Group functions.
- Group functions: address cross-functional processes involving Finance, IT, Data, HR, Risk, Legal and other specialist areas.
4. Operating-model improvement in partnership with HR
- Work with HR to evaluate whether accountabilities, structures, governance, role interfaces, spans, capabilities and central-versus-local ownership support effective delivery.
- Develop evidence-based options with HR, setting out the operational, customer, financial, people and implementation implications.
- Partner with HR and Heads of Functions to clarify decision rights, accountabilities and interfaces across Group, Regional and Divisional boundaries.
- Work jointly with HR, Finance and Heads of Functions to shape recommendations affecting organisation design, roles, capability or workforce requirements, with HR leading the relevant people processes.
- Agree with HR and Heads of Functions where the evidence supports structural change and where reinforcing the existing model is the better response.
5. Technology, data, automation and AI enablement
- Identify where technology, better data, automation or AI could improve customer outcomes, process effectiveness, decision quality or productivity.
- Define the business problem, future process, user need, expected value, adoption requirements and success measures.
- Develop and prioritise business-led use cases with IT, Data, Digital, Risk and subject-matter experts from the relevant Group functions.
- Ensure technology enables a well-designed process rather than automating unnecessary complexity.
- Support appropriate experimentation and scaling with clear governance, controls, ownership and benefit measurement.
- Build digital and AI literacy among sponsors and named business owners.
6. Benefits realisation and commercial value
- Set clear baselines, outcomes, costs, risks and benefit measures before approval.
- Agree who will sponsor, deliver and own each improvement and its benefits.
- Work with Finance to validate financial assumptions and expected benefits.
- Track financial and non-financial benefits during and after delivery.
- Challenge initiatives where evidence, expected return or delivery confidence no longer supports continued investment.
- Ensure benefits are embedded in ongoing performance management and owned by the relevant Group, Regional or Divisional leader after handover.
7. Governance and performance management
- Set a clear process for identifying, assessing, approving, delivering and reviewing improvements.
- Set clear governance, reporting and escalation routes for priority initiatives.
- Agree clear measures for customer, quality, cost, productivity, service, risk and adoption.
- Provide clear, evidence-based updates to the COO, sponsors and relevant governance forums.
- Manage dependencies and escalate barriers that cannot be resolved within a Group function, Region or Division.
8. Change, adoption and improvement capability
- Mobilise and facilitate project-specific cross-functional teams for priority initiatives.
- Build commitment through early involvement of operational leaders, subject-matter experts and affected colleagues.
- Develop practical adoption plans covering communications, leadership, capability, systems, controls and transition.
- Capture and share relevant learning and build sustainable improvement capability without unnecessary permanent infrastructure.
Key relationships
Internal
- Chief Operating Officer and executive sponsors
- Heads of Functions
- Regional and Divisional leadership
- Business owners, subject-matter experts and programme sponsors
External
- Selected technology, improvement, research or advisory partners
- Suppliers and delivery partners where required to improve an end-to-end process
- Relevant professional and industry networks
Decision and influence scope
The Continuous Improvement Director will be authorised to:
- Propose and maintain the agreed pipeline of priority improvements;
- Set common improvement, evidence, governance and benefits standards;
- Require credible baselines, business cases, ownership, measures and adoption plans;
- Convene cross-functional diagnostic and design activity with executive sponsorship;
- Challenge functional or local practices that create wider customer, operational or commercial inefficiency;
- Make recommendations to the COO and executive sponsors on investment, prioritisation and implementation;
- Escalate unresolved cross-functional barriers, risks or decisions; and
- Recommend that initiatives are stopped, paused or redirected where evidence does not support continuation.
The role will not:
- Hold day-to-day operational line-management accountability or replace the accountability of Head of Functions;
- Own a permanent transformation team;
- Assume ownership of technology platforms, technical architecture, cyber security or production support;
- Hold regulatory or professional accountability belonging to designated specialists; or
- Retain ongoing functional or Divisional ownership of changed processes or benefits after handover.
Heads of Functions and named business owners remain accountable for operational decisions, implementation within their areas and sustaining agreed benefits.