Head of DCA Operations

Help us shape fair, data‑smart collections that put people first.

Founded in 2021, Sopra Steria Financial Services is redefining what’s possible for public and private sector organisations across the UK—from cutting‑edge IT and consulting for leading banks, to energising customer experiences for the UK’s largest savings bank, to ethical, data‑driven recoveries that do the right thing for customers and clients.

As Head of DCA Operations, you’ll lead and empower a high‑performing team, building a culture of trust, inclusion and continuous improvement. You bring strong expertise in debt collection within regulated environments, translating data and technology into compassionate, compliant outcomes. Your operational rigour, spanning governance, analytics and best‑practice process design, keeps us robust and agile as the landscape evolves. Mortgage experience is a plus as we grow in this area.

If our values, Respect, Excellence, Empathy and Community, resonate, you’ll feel at home here, and you’ll have the scope to set the pace for how collections and recoveries should be done.

This role is hybrid with 1-2 days per week in our Newcastle office.

What you'll be doing:

• Lead by example, championing a positive, solution‑focused and commercially aware mindset, while modelling behaviours that support an inclusive and collaborative culture.
• Shape and deliver the collections and recoveries strategy, using innovative and customer‑centric approaches that improve outcomes and align with business objectives.
• Maintain strong regulatory compliance by ensuring all activities meet UK consumer credit laws, FCA standards and internal governance requirements, supported by regular monitoring and reporting.
• Use data and insight to identify risks, track portfolio performance and drive informed decision‑making, presenting clear recommendations to senior leadership when needed.
• Build a high‑performing team through clear goal‑setting, supportive coaching, continuous feedback and a focus on personal and professional development.
• Strengthen operational excellence by continually improving policies, processes, workflows and technology to enhance efficiency, customer experience and compliant delivery, including contributing to the growth of mortgage collections where relevant.

What you’ll bring:

• Strong understanding of regulatory requirements across debt collection activities, with a commitment to fair and consistent customer outcomes.
• A proactive, partnership‑focused mindset, acting as a trusted adviser to colleagues, stakeholders and clients.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to listen, engage and convey information clearly in both written and verbal formats.
• Confident in leading, motivating and supporting others, using creativity and collaboration to solve complex problems.
• Passionate about delivering positive outcomes, including strong collection performance, great customer experiences and high-quality standards.
• Comfortable navigating a fast‑paced, evolving environment, using a solution‑focused approach to balance customer, stakeholder and business needs.

It would be great if you had:

• Experience in mortgage collections

If you are interested in this role but not sure if your skills and experience are exactly what we’re looking for, please do apply, we’d love to hear from you!

Employment Type: Full-time

Location: Home based and Newcastle

Security Clearance Level : SC

Internal Recruiter: Adrian

Salary: Up to £75k pa depending on experience

Benefits: £6,600 car allowance, bonus, 25 days annual leave with the option to buy additional days, private medical, life assurance, pension, and generous flexible benefits fund.

Although this role is advertised as full-time, we believe that flexibility at work can promote work/life balance, increase your motivation, reduce stress and improves performance and productivity. We support different ways of working and can offer a range of flexible working arrangements. So, if you’re interested and need to work flexibly, we encourage you to apply and talk to us about what might be possible.

Loved reading about this job and want to know more about us?

Our specialist Private Sector team are experienced in a range of different markets including Banking, Insurance, Retail, Travel, Transport and Utilities. We help our customers develop, deliver and operationalise their digital transformation strategies. We work in true partnership with our customer, gaining a deep understanding of their business and technology issues.

Our capabilities and credentials across Private Sector markets enable the design, delivery and management of business transformation programmes. We help our clients respond to changing customer demands, keep ahead of the competition, and safeguard their systems from evolving business and technology risks.

The personal information we have collected from you will be shared with Cifas who will use it to prevent fraud, other unlawful or dishonest conduct, malpractice, and other seriously improper conduct. If any of these are detected you could be refused certain services or employment. Your personal information will also be used to verify your identity. Further details of how your information will be used by us and Cifas, and your data protection rights, can be found by [https://www.cifas.org.uk/fpn].

We embrace difference as a source of creativity, innovation and competitive advantage and are striving to become a more diverse organisation. We welcome applications from people with a diverse variety of backgrounds and identities. We are committed to equality of opportunity for all and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation or marital status. We have partnered with Vercida, the UK's largest diversity and inclusion focused careers site, where all our vacancies are available in an accessible format.

If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, to enable you to perform to the best of your ability, please let us know when completing your application. We participate in the Disability Confident scheme and are committed to offering an interview to any candidate with a disability, who meets the minimum criteria for the role. If you believe this could apply to you, please let us know when completing your application.