Head of Strategy

First Rail London (FRL) is the train operating company responsible for running the London Overground network under a concession agreement with Transport for London (TfL). The concession began in May 2026.

First Rail London is part of First Group, one of the leading rail operators and one of the largest bus operators in the UK. First Group operates services throughout the UK and Ireland, with over 30,000 employees providing services that make travel smoother and life easier. First Group works hard to reduce its impact on the environment, introducing cleaner and more environmentally responsible methods of transport.

• Lead the development and delivery of the long-term performance strategy for First Rail London.
• Develop and maintain a strategic roadmap to deliver sustainable improvements in operational performance, resilience and customer outcomes across the London Overground network.
• Provide leadership of organisational learning, performance forecasting, operating plan development and strategic performance improvement activity, ensuring the business develops the capability required to deliver future performance objectives, concession commitments and stakeholder expectations.
• Lead a specialist team focused on continuous improvement, performance intelligence and future operating model development to turn insight into action and action into measurable performance outcomes.

• Develop and maintain the organisation's Performance Strategy.
• Develop long-term performance improvement roadmaps aligned to business objectives and concession commitments.
• Identify future performance risks and opportunities across the network and works to implement measures to mitigate them.
• Lead strategic planning activity to improve performance, resilience and operational efficiency.
• Ensure performance priorities align with operational, customer and stakeholder requirements.

• Lead delivery of strategic performance improvement programmes.
• Sponsor and oversee concession commitments, bid initiatives and performance transformation activity.
• Develop and maintain a pipeline of future performance improvement opportunities.
• Challenge existing operating practices and identify opportunities for innovation and improvement.
• Benchmark performance strategies and best practice across the rail industry.

• Ensure learning from incidents, investigations and operational reviews is embedded across the organisation.
• Promote a Just Culture approach to performance improvement and incident learning.
• Ensure recurring themes and systemic risks are identified and addressed.
• Support the identification and removal of organisational TEPID OIL (training, equipment, people, infrastructure, doctrine, organisation, information and logistics).

• Sponsor strategic reviews of key lines of route and operating models.
• Oversee development of future operating plans including timetable, depot, fleet and traincrew considerations.
• Ensure whole-system reviews are undertaken to identify opportunities for fundamental performance improvement.
• Support development of operating plans capable of delivering future capacity and performance requirements.

• Ensure robust performance forecasting and modelling capability exists within the organization, including commercial forecasting and modelling (Schedule 7 &
  8)
• Use predictive analysis to identify emerging risks and opportunities.
• Support development of performance improvement schemes and associated business cases.
• Oversee production of strategic insight to inform investment decisions and prioritisation activity.
• Ensure benefits from performance initiatives are measured and tracked.

• Develop strong working relationships with Network Rail, TfL, fleet partners and other stakeholders.
• Lead joint strategic performance initiatives and improvement programmes.
• Represent the organisation at strategic performance forums and working groups.
• Promote collaborative approaches to performance improvement across industry partners

• Significant railway operational and performance management experience.
• Experience of developing and delivering strategic improvement programmes.
• Strong understanding of railway performance management and the Whole System Model.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills.
• Strong analytical and…