Workday Release Analyst

WPP is embarking on a major 3-year transformation to simplify, modernise, and unify its technology platforms across the group. This change is critical to:

·       Enable cost-effective transformation and operational efficiency

·       Accelerate adoption of AI, data, and digital platforms

·       Ensure consistent delivery of value and benefits across all agencies and markets

·       Minimise disruption and maximise engagement during large-scale change

Workday is a cornerstone of this transformation, providing a single, modern system of record for people data and for driving efficiency through our operations and finance functions. By standardising core processes, improving data quality and enabling better insights, Workday supports consistent ways of working, stronger governance and future‑ready capabilities, while creating the foundation for scalable change, automation and AI‑enabled decision making across WPP.

Why we're hiring:

We are looking for a Workday Release Analyst to join the Workday Services Team providing the post go-live support and enhancement of the Workday solution that replaces some of our core technology and influences our ways of working for many of our colleagues at WPP.

In this role you will be a member of the Global QA Hub, working within the Workday Services Team, and reporting to the Workday Tenant and Release Lead.

You will be responsible for release coordination and tenant management activities, ensuring all Workday environments are up to date, correctly configured, and capable of supporting change, testing, integrations, and production operations.

What you'll be doing:

• Manage Workday tenants to ensure availability and stability for support, testing, and project activities.
• Coordinate Workday releases and updates across tenants, including production deployments, in line with agreed release calendars.
• Plan and coordinate tenant refresh activities, including impact assessment, scheduling, and post-refresh validation.
• Own and maintain release and tenant-related tickets in Jira, ensuring accuracy, traceability, and timely progression.
• Coordinate with QA, functional, integration, and security teams to ensure release readiness and acceptance criteria are met.
• Support release governance activities, including CAB inputs, risk tracking, and dependency management.
• Communicate system downtime, releases, patching, and maintenance windows to stakeholders.
• Ensure adherence to global Workday standards, processes, and governance controls.
• Actively contribute to continuous improvement of release, tenant, and deployment processes.

What you'll need:

• Experience in release management, tenant management, or application support within Workday Platform.
• Experience using Jira, ServiceNow or similar ticketing and test management tools.
• Understanding of how ERP systems operate in large, global organisations.
• Good technical understanding of SaaS platforms, integrations (APIs, EIB, Web Services), and data flows.
• Excellent organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple releases, priorities, and stakeholders simultaneously.
• Effective communication skills with the ability to work with multiple teams (QA, Functional, Integration, Security) and manage cross-team dependencies effectively.
• Understanding of Workday feature release and ability to assess potential impacts across tenants, integrations and Security.
• Experience supporting release governance, CAB processes, and deployment readiness activities is highly desirable.

Who you are: