SAP Technical Lead

As an SAP Technical Lead, you’ll be responsible for overseeing the design, development and implementation of SAP ECC & S/4HANA technical solutions to ensure they align with the company’s business objectives and IT strategy. This is a technical delivery lead role for SAP ECC and S/4HANA - ABAP, OData, Fiori & BTP requiring a mix of technical expertise, leadership abilities, team management skills and business acumen to lead development strategy, solution design in collaboration with implementation partners.

You will be responsible for the success of SAP implementations and ensure the technical quality, governance, and operationalisation of the solutions. This position requires deep experience with SAP applications, including expert-level knowledge of SAP ECC, S/4HANA, and integrations with SAP Cloud applications like Ariba, SuccessFactors, and Service Cloud.

As a technical expert, you will be willing to assist the development of others whilst also developing your own knowledge. You will ensure best practice is followed and look for opportunities for improvement.

What you’ll be doing as a SAP Technical Lead

Design & Development:

• Lead the SAP ECC & S/4HANA (ABAP, Fiori/UI5, BTP) technical strategy, solution architecture and development governance to ensure quality, consistency and efficiency across all SAP landscapes.
• Collaborate with BTP Integration teams to drive the technical design and delivery of SAP Cloud Integration projects involving Ariba, SuccessFactors, Salesforce and other external systems using API-based architecture.
• Lead the technical migration approach for the ECC → S/4HANA transformation including custom code remediation, simplification items, extensibility strategy and readiness for SAP upgrades. · Proven expertise in Interface technologies (ABAP Proxies, REST, SOAP, IDOC, RFC, OData) and experience with CPI / BTP IS.
• Champion S/4HANA clean core principles by promoting in-app and side-by-side extensibility patterns, RAP model adoption, and reduction of custom code footprint during migration.
• Analyse and troubleshoot BTP integration latency, performance and throughput issues across ECC, S/4HANA, Fiori and cloud-based extensions, ensuring robust monitoring and error handling.
• Design and implement Fiori/UI5 applications and modern user experiences leveraging SAP Fiori design guidelines, RAP model (good to have), and aligned UI extensibility practices.
• As a technical design authority, provide thought leadership to partner ABAP development teams (ECC + S/4HANA) including design reviews, coding standards, reusable framework creation, and performance optimization.

Platform Support:

• Advise technical teams on performance, scalability, versioning, reliability, monitoring, and other operational concerns of SAP solutions.
• Support stakeholders in troubleshooting with existing solutions.
• Accountability for the management of any production incidents or problems.
• Document and direct the handover of solutions into business-as-usual (BAU) operations to support a robust service transition.
• Own and manage deployments of new releases to the production environment.

Continuous Improvement:

• Identify areas of continuous improvement and create effective solutions to implement them.
• Become a key contributor and advocate of SAP best practices and frameworks in projects and programs.
• Continually reviewing the development and approaches to ensure base standards are consistent and the latest platform features are being used.
• Assist in reviewing the existing SAP landscape, increase reuse and expand our monitoring capabilities.

Team planning and review:

• Participate in team DevOps ceremonies (sprint planning, show and tell, sprint review etc), providing valued input and being an excellent team player.

Base Location: Reading - Hybrid

Working Pattern: 36 Hours

What you should bring to the role

To thrive in this role, the essential criteria you’ll need is:

• Extensive experience of SAP ABAP development experience on ECC and S/4HANA including enhancements, performance tuning, BAdIs, user exits, interfaces, proxy frameworks and IS-U ABAP preferred.
• Proven hands-on experience in S/4HANA ABAP including CDS Views, AMDP, OData services, S/4HANA extensibility (in-app & side-by-side), and RAP (preferred)
• Expertise in different components/capabilities of SAP Cloud applications – SAP Ariba, SuccessFactors, Service Cloud.
• Strong experience in leveraging standard SAP content to build solutions for inbound and outbound interfaces between SAP and Non-SAP applications (ABAP Proxies, REST, SOAP, IDOC, RFC, OData)
• Strong exposure to SAP S/4HANA technical migration / brownfield or greenfield transformation, including custom code remediation and simplification. Preferred E2E S4HANA upgrade experience.
• Experience in Fiori/UI5 development, end-to-end custom app design, and extensibility of standard Fiori apps.
• Strong experience in designing reusable assets, components, standards, frameworks, and processes to support and facilitate SAP projects.
• Experience of working within a DevOps environment and the related processes and controls.

What’s in it for you?

• Offering between £65,000 - £83,000 per annum, depending on experience.
• Annual Leave - 26 days holiday per year increasing to 30 with the length of service. (plus bank holidays).
• Car allowance.
• Annual bonus.
• Private medical healthcare.
• Generous Pension Scheme through AON.
• Performance-related pay plan directly linked to company performance measures and targets.
• Access to lots of benefits to help you take care of your and your family’s health and well-being, and your finances – from annual health MOTs and access to physiotherapy and counselling to Cycle to Work schemes, shopping vouchers and life assurance.

Find out more about our benefits and perks

Who are we?

We’re the UK’s largest water and wastewater company, with more than 16 million customers relying on us every day to supply water for their taps and toilets. We want to build a better future for all, helping our customers, communities, people, and the planet to thrive. It’s a big job and we’ve got a long way to go, so we need help from passionate and skilled people, committed to making a difference and getting us to where we want to be in the years and decades to come.
Learn more about our purpose and values

Working at Thames Water

Thames Water is a unique, rewarding, and diverse place to work, where every day you can make a difference, yet no day is the same. As part of our family, you’ll enjoy meaningful career opportunities, flexible working arrangements and excellent benefits.

If you’re looking for a sustainable and successful career where you can make a daily difference to millions of people’s lives while helping to protect the world of water for future generations, we’ll be here to support you every step of the way. Together, we can build a better future for our customers, our region, and our planet.

Real purpose, real support, real opportunities. Come and join the Thames Water family. Why choose us? Learn more.

We’re committed to being a great, diverse, and inclusive place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and want to ensure you feel supported throughout the recruitment process. If you need any adjustments, whether that’s extra time, accessible formats, or anything else just let us know, we’re here to help and support.

When a crisis happens, we all rally around to support our customers. As part of Team Thames, you’ll have the opportunity to sign up to support our customers on the frontline as an ambassador. Full training will be given for what is undoubtedly an incredibly rewarding experience. It’s also a great opportunity to learn more about our business and meet colleagues.

Disclaimer: due to the high volume of applications we receive, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.