ServiceNow Principal Specialist

On behalf of UK Parliament, we are looking for a ServiceNow Principal Specialist (Inside IR35) for a 5 Month Hybrid contract based 1 day per week in London.

The role sits within the Enterprise Technology team in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer which supports Parliament in delivering its democratic mission by providing secure, resilient and innovative technology services that are user centred and strategically aligned.

The ServiceNow Principal Infrastructure Engineer is a hands-on technical authority and implementer for Parliament's ServiceNow platform, holding design authority for the platform and working directly on its most complex and highest-risk engineering. The role is embedded within value streams, establishing the engineering vision, technical standards and quality assurance framework that govern design, configuration, development and operation, and proving those standards in practice. The post-holder drives resilience and maturity by focusing on complex technical risk, architectural health, and leading the technical response to major problem domains.

Reporting to the Service Owner, you will set the architectural direction and engineering standards that others work within and takes the final technical decision on enterprise design questions. They operate with significant autonomy, working alongside colleagues in value streams and across Enterprise Technology to secure the long-term technical health of the platform.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical authority and design ownership: Define, own and apply the technical blueprint and engineering standards for the ServiceNow platform, working hands-on to prototype and prove the most complex design decisions before they are adopted. Provide technical sign-off and assurance for major configuration, development and deployment, ensuring compliance with enterprise architecture, data and security policies and the safe use of scoped applications, access controls (ACLs) and platform APIs.
• Architectural health and technical debt: Proactively assess the technical health of the ServiceNow estate, including the CMDB, integrations, workflows and customisation, and lead the engineering work to reduce significant technical debt, minimise unnecessary customisation and improve service resilience and upgradeability across the platform lifecycle.
• Complex problem domain leadership: Lead the analysis, investigation and root cause resolution of the most critical and complex technical problems affecting the ServiceNow service, working hands-on across multiple technology domains (for example integrations, MID Servers, identity and access, networking and security) to implement permanent, reliable solutions.
• Innovation and technical road mapping: Lead the technical evaluation and prototyping of emerging ServiceNow capabilities (for example new modules, IntegrationHub spokes and platform AI such as Now Assist), building working proofs of concept and translating the findings into clear, actionable input to the platform roadmap and upgrade strategy.
• Security assurance and compliance: Act as the primary technical point of contact for ServiceNow platform security, ensuring designs, access controls and configurations adhere to NCSC and internal security mandates including data classification, encryption and instance hardening and providing technical assurance of third-party and supplier-delivered changes.

Person Specification

• Strategic technical design and assurance: The ability to provide authoritative technical sign-off and assurance for complex, scalable ServiceNow architectures, aligned to GDAD service management expectations, backed by current hands-on engineering experience on an enterprise-scale platform.
• Complex problem and risk mitigation: Proven ability to lead and deliver the root cause analysis and resolution of highly complex, cross-domain ServiceNow technical problems, including those spanning integrations, identity and access, and high-risk changes within the platform lifecycle, and to proactively identify, communicate and mitigate significant technical risk and debt.
• Technical leadership and mentoring: Ability to operate as the organisation's ServiceNow design authority, influencing and raising the capability of engineers working in value streams through clear technical direction, hands-on example and coaching, without line management responsibility.
• Innovation and emerging technology integration: The ability to technically evaluate and demonstrate the feasibility of emerging technologies relevant to the ServiceNow domain, building proofs of concept and translating complex technical findings into clear options for the platform roadmap.
• Communication of technical governance and inclusion: Ability to articulate complex technical ServiceNow governance requirements, standards and strategic technical recommendations persuasively to senior stakeholders and architects. Must actively promote technical knowledge sharing and uphold diversity and inclusion in all technical design decisions.
• Automation and cross-platform technical expertise: Experience using scripting and automation tools (for example JavaScript/Glide, Business Rules, Flow Designer and IntegrationHub) to build, manage and deploy ServiceNow services at scale, alongside providing technical assurance and integration design across multiple technology domains.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident

As a Disability Confident employer, UK Parliament encourage applications from disabled and neurodivergent candidates. Applications from candidates who identify as having a disability and meet the essential criteria for the role will be prioritised for review. Where application volumes are high, additional role-specific and desirable criteria may be applied as part of the shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

Armed Forces commitment

As a signatory of the Armed Forces Covenant, UK Parliament welcome applications from veterans, service leavers, reservists and military spouses or partners. Applications from eligible candidates who meet the essential criteria for the role will be prioritised for review. Where application volumes are high, additional role-specific and desirable criteria may be applied as part of the shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following "this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different".