As a Delivery Manager, you are accountable for team performance and the end-to-end delivery of products and services. You will build high-performing, motivated teams, fostering a culture of continuous improvement, applying agile and lean methodologies to optimise ways of working.
Team Leadership:
A Delivery Manager will build and sustain collaborative teams by assessing capacity and strengths. Identify and remove blockers to ensure the team remains focused on delivery priorities.
Agile Practice:
You will apply the most effective agile and lean tools for the context. Encourage experimentation, reflective practice, and the visualisation of outcomes to improve ways of working.
Stakeholder and Supplier Management:
In this role you will act as the primary lead for third-party suppliers and navigate internal government processes. Bridge the gap between technical and non-technical stakeholders, managing expectations and facilitating difficult discussions.
Risk and Finance:
It is important that you proactively manage risks, issues, and dependencies. Balance cost versus value using data-driven planning and manage financial reporting and escalations.
Lifecycle Delivery:
You will manage products through all lifecycle phases, ensuring alignment with service standards and developing robust plans for complex situations.
Top 3 requirements:
- Demonstrate true servant leadership, actively enabling the team's delivery while maintaining the confidence and ability to engage with senior-level stakeholders.
- Proven experience operating within an agile environment.
- Possess the ability to leverage cognitive diversity effectively, employing strong visual, written, and verbal communication skills to cultivate a unified understanding.
Experience and skills
Must haves:
- Proven experience delivering digital services through Discovery, Alpha, and Beta phases, with a specific emphasis on leading Discovery.
- Expertise in applying the GOV.UK Service Standard to large-scale projects, including services designed for internal users.
- A versatile agile practitioner capable of tailoring methodologies to specific delivery phases and co-creating practices with the team.
- Extensive experience fostering a culture of continuous learning through retrospectives, 1:1s, and honest feedback loops.
- A dedicated focus on team wellbeing, with a track record of successfully navigating the "storming" phase to drive high-performance delivery.
- A proactive approach to removing friction, encompassing everything from high-level facilitation to essential team administration (e.g., documentation, scheduling, and
review).
- Highly skilled in facilitating diverse sessions to ensure team alignment and progress.
- Comfortable leading through complexity and uncertainty, using structured tools and techniques to maintain momentum when requirements are evolving.
- Highly self-directed and able to build effective mental models of work to execute tasks independently or as part of a collective.
- An honest and clear communicator, capable of maintaining transparency with stakeholders at all levels.
Nice to haves:
- Familiarity with the GDS Service Standard or similar public/private sector design frameworks.
- Experience working in the Ministry of Defence (MOD) or similar secure environments.
- Awareness of data processing platform technology (e.g DevOps CI/CD pipeline (building/supporting), K8s (ideally OpenShift)
- Experience using Jira for workflow management software
DDaT description: Delivery Manager
SFIA Level: 5
Start date: 1 August 2026
Initial contract length: 3 Months
Role location: Portsmouth
Nationality specification: Sole British National - no dual nationality
Number of days per week expected on site: 3+ per week (depending on need)
Minimum security level: SC or above
Day rate: £540
