Workday HRIS Lead Specialist - Hybrid or Remote within the UK

About This Role

This specialist role oversees the strategy, implementation, and optimization of HR technology solutions, primarily Workday, to support organizational goals and enhance the employee experience. The successful candidate will lead a functional HRIS team and manage complex Workday operations and governance.

Responsibilities

• Act as escalation point for complex Workday L2/L3 cases across HCM, Recruiting, Compensation, Absence and Integrations
• Manage direct escalations from Tier 1 analysts and HR/TA stakeholders on urgent or sensitive cases
• Provide decisioning and risk management for high-impact issues affecting hiring, pay or executive populations
• Oversee HRIS backlog prioritization and recurring refinement forums
• Ensure documentation and governance controls are in place
• Provide day-to-day leadership and support to the functional HRIS team across HCM, Recruiting, Compensation and Absence
• Act as first point of contact for complex functional or technical queries where analysts require confirmation or direction
• Support the team in assessing requirements, options and impacts before configuration changes are made
• Guide next steps on configuration for Change Requests (CRs) and project work, including tenant strategy (sandbox vs preview vs production)
• Help shape and validate configuration approaches to ensure they align to global design, governance standards and downstream impacts
• Remove blockers by advising on sequencing, dependencies, testing approach and stakeholder alignment
• Coordinate SOW preparation, internal approvals and VP signature routing via DocuSign
• Liaise with Procurement and Legal to ensure commercial and contractual compliance
• Maintain oversight of active AMS and project SOWs
• Conduct release impact assessment
• Manage change gating/evidence
• Coordinate deployment
• Ensure post-release stabilization
• Responsible for BAU delivery (e.g. performance review, compensation cycles and benefit enrollment events)
• Work with cross functional teams to ensure all security related requirements are fully analyzed and appropriate checks and balances applied
• Facilitate weekly team and quarterly SLT governance forums

Requirements

• Solid human resources experience, with the ability to manage competing priorities and develop your team
• Bachelor's degree in information systems, human resources, business administration, or a related field, or equivalent experience
• Extensive experience in HR technology management, including implementation and oversight of major HR platforms e.g., Workday, SAP, Oracle
• Strong strategic thinking skills with a proven ability to align technology with business goals
• Excellent communication and leadership abilities, with experience managing teams and cross-functional projects
• A commitment to continuous improvement, innovation, and delivering a high-quality employee experience through technology
• Willingness to travel as required (approximately 5%)

Benefits

• Competitive base salary and performance related incentives
• Health and wellbeing programs including medical, dental, and vision coverage where applicable
• Retirement and pension plans
• Life assurance and disability coverage
• Employee assistance programs and wellbeing resources
• Learning and development opportunities through structured training and career pathways

About the Company

ICON is a global healthcare intelligence and clinical research organization united by a mission to bring new medicines and treatments to patients faster. As a values-driven organization, integrity, collaboration, agility, and inclusion are at the heart of how they work and interact with each other, customers, patients and suppliers.