Gareth Workman - Northern Ireland Young IT Professional of the Year 2015

Gareth has worked in the IT industry for over 9 years and has been recently promoted to a Principal Architect, in recognition of the value he is adding to Kainos’s business and people. He is the youngest Principal Architect in Kainos, and is considered a role model in the company for the younger technical community, where he understands the importance of coaching and mentoring the next generation of over 30 aspiring WebOps professionals.

Over the last 3 years, as part of leading the WebOps capability within Kainos, Gareth championed the use of DevOps to establish high performing multi-skilled teams delivering digital solutions for the UK Government. Gareth is extremely comfortable communicating with C-level stakeholders, and this was evidenced during his time on the Rural Payments Exemplar when he received an award for his technical leadership.

Gareth has developed great vendor relationships with companies like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Skyscape, and has also been recognised as a thought leader across Government, having been invited to shape the direction of the GDS Government as a Platform service, and help define the capabilities it needs to deliver shared digital services. He has lead teams of engineers on a number of the GDS exemplar projects and other high volume government transactional services, which are now being used by millions of UK citizens.

Notably, Gareth has played a crucial role in delivering a large scale and highly complex cloud migration project for a new DVSA MOT service. Gareth ensured the digital service was capable of scaling to meet the dynamic demand placed upon the service from its users, and he also lead the approach and re-design of the service during the transition, to avail of the scalable capabilities of the AWS cloud, within an intense 6 week period. Gareth’s leadership and level of professionalism during this demanding time, was a significant factor in achieving the project’s milestones and gaining public beta certification by GDS.

As a Principal Architect Gareth’s achievements have extended beyond his main role of delivering successful digital solutions to customers. This has involved building out a team of over 30 highly skilled WebOps professionals who work in multi-disciplinary agile teams across the UK and Poland. Through relationships and recognition gained within the UK WebOps community Gareth is skilled in attracting senior talent and nurturing junior talent in our organisation, and had a leading role in the innovative WebOps academy run at an office in Gdansk in Poland.

Within the IT industry, Gareth is also building a profile as a WebOps guru having presented at conferences such as BelTech, where he lead a discussion panel with peers from HP & Citi.

At this early stage in his career, Gareth has shown outstanding leadership through his dedication in helping Government departments embrace DevOps and its supporting principles. His commitment and professionalism in sharing skills and building digital capability within departments, is enabling the UK Government to deliver more cost effective and user focused public services, positively impacting the lives of millions of UK citizens. He is a deserving winner of the Northern Ireland Young IT Professional of the Year Award 2015.