The Head of Delivery is a forward-looking, solutions-driven leadership role responsible for the successful delivery of all programmes and contracts across the business. This is not a role for simply reporting problems — it is a role for anticipating them, solving them, and driving programmes to successful completion.
The post holder will take ownership of the full programme lifecycle from bidding, contract award through to client acceptance, leading a culture of proactive risk management, cost control, and schedule confidence. They will work hand-in-hand with Operations Director, Engineering Director, and Commercial to ensure every programme is delivered on time, within budget, and to the quality standards demanded by defence clients.
They will also play an active role in bidding activity, ensuring that delivery timelines, programme structures, and cost baselines within proposals are realistic, competitive, and winnable — setting programmes up for success before contract award.
Key Responsibilities
1. Programme Leadership & Forward Delivery Planning
Take full ownership of all active programmes, maintaining a clear, accurate, and forward-looking view of programme health across the entire portfolio.
Establish and maintain robust programme plans, schedules, and milestones that provide genuine confidence in delivery — not just status reporting.
Drive a delivery culture built on early identification of issues, rapid escalation of solutions, and a relentless focus on achieving programme milestones.
Ensure all programme teams are focused on what needs to happen next, not just what has happened — keeping momentum, pace, and accountability at the centre of programme execution.
Chair regular programme reviews that are action-oriented and forward-looking, ensuring decisions are made and owners are held accountable.
Maintain a consolidated portfolio view of all programmes, providing the Board and Operations Director with clear, concise delivery confidence reporting with a level of details that give the ability to manage fast paced change.
2. Risk & Issue Management
Own the programme risk management framework across the business, ensuring risks are identified early, quantified accurately, and mitigated proactively before they become delivery problems.
Maintain a dynamic risk register for each programme, working with engineering, operations, and supply chain teams to ensure mitigations are live, owned, and progressed.
Lead the development of realistic contingency and recovery plans, ensuring the business always has a credible path to on-time delivery even when circumstances change.
Distinguish clearly between risks that require escalation and those that can be resolved within the delivery team — driving ownership and accountability at the right level.
Ensure client-facing risk reporting is honest, confident, and solution-focused, reinforcing the company’s reputation as a delivery partner that manages problems rather than simply reports them.
3. Cost Management & Financial Control
Hold budgetary accountability for all programme cost baselines, tracking actual spend against plan and taking corrective action where variances arise and ensure any issues are fed back into the bidding cycle.
Ensure that programme teams understand their cost responsibilities and that purchasing decisions are made in line with approved budgets and programme requirements.
Identify and report cost risks early, providing the Board with clear options and recommendations rather than retrospective explanations of overspend.
Drive cost efficiency across programme delivery without compromising quality, safety, or client commitments.
Support the Operations Director in identifying and realising margin improvement opportunities across active contracts.
4. Purchasing & Supply Chain Delivery
Own the purchasing timeline for all programmes, ensuring that materials, components, and subcontract services are ordered, tracked, and received in line with production and integration schedules.
proactively manage lead times, supplier performance, and delivery risk, escalating and resolving issues before they impact programme milestones.
Ensure purchasing decisions are commercially sound, properly authorised, and aligned with programme cost baselines.
Develop and maintain a supplier delivery performance tracking system, driving accountability across the supply chain and building a reliable network of defence-capable suppliers.
Identify supply chain risks early and maintain alternative sourcing strategies for critical long-lead items and single-source dependencies. Ensuring suppliers are accredited to the required Defence standards.
5. Bidding & Programme Planning Support
Play an active and early role in the bidding process, contributing realistic and credible delivery schedules, programme structures, and resource plans to all proposals and tender submissions.
Challenge and validate proposed timelines during bid development, ensuring the business never commits to a schedule it cannot achieve.
Develop programme execution plans and delivery narratives for bids that demonstrate to clients a mature, credible, and confidence-inspiring approach to programme management.
Ensure lessons learned from delivered programmes are fed back into bid assumptions, improving the accuracy of future cost and schedule baselines.
Work with the Commercial and Engineering teams to identify programme risks within bids and ensure they are appropriately priced and mitigated within proposals.
6. Client Engagement & Relationship Management
Act as the primary programme-level point of contact for clients, providing regular, confident, and forward-looking delivery updates.
Build strong, trusted relationships with client programme offices, demonstrating at every interaction that the business is in control of its programmes and focused on client success.
Lead programme review meetings, ensuring they are structured, purposeful, and focused on future milestones and actions rather than retrospective reporting.
Manage client expectations proactively and professionally, communicating changes to scope, schedule, or cost with clarity and confidence, always presenting a clear path forward.
Contribute to client retention and repeat business by demonstrating delivery excellence and building a reputation as a programme partner clients can rely on.
7. People, Culture & Delivery Standards
Lead, develop, and inspire the programme delivery team, setting high standards of professionalism, accountability, and forward-focused thinking. Act at all times with upmost integrity.
Embed a delivery culture across the business where every team member understands their role in programme success and is empowered to raise and resolve issues quickly.
Define and implement consistent programme management standards, tools, and processes across all contracts, ensuring best practice is shared and applied.
Provide coaching and development for any future project managers and delivery staff, building long-term capability within the team.
Work collaboratively with the Operations Director, Engineering, teams to ensure joined-up programme execution from contract award to client acceptance.
Person Specification
Essential Qualifications & Experience
Proven track record of successfully delivering complex, multi-programme portfolios within the UK defence or closely related engineering sector.
Demonstrable experience managing programme costs, risks, schedules, and supply chains within a defence or highly regulated manufacturing environment.
Strong commercial awareness with experience managing programme budgets and driving cost performance.
Experience contributing to defence bids and proposals, specifically in developing credible and competitive delivery schedules and programme plans.
A natural problem-solver and forward thinker — someone who arrives with solutions, not just status updates.
Proven ability to build strong client relationships at programme level within a defence environment.
Experience managing purchasing timelines and supply chain delivery in support of production and integration programmes.
Current SC Security Clearance or the ability and willingness to obtain it.
Desirable Qualifications
Degree or higher qualification in Engineering, Project Management, Operations, or a related discipline.
APM Project Management Qualification (PMQ), APM Practitioner Qualification (PPQ), or equivalent (e.g. PRINCE2 Practitioner, PMP) or relevant experience.
Experience with MOD CADMID or CADMIT programme lifecycle frameworks.
Knowledge of defence procurement processes, contracting mechanisms, and MOD programme governance. Agile.
Key Competencies
Forward Thinking — Always focused on what needs to happen next to keep programmes on track, not what went wrong yesterday.
Ownership & Accountability — Takes full responsibility for programme outcomes and drives the same standard across the team.
Problem Solving — Identifies issues early and arrives with credible, actionable solutions.
Commercial Awareness — Understands the financial drivers of programme performance and manages cost with the same rigour as schedule.
Client Confidence — Communicates with clients in a way that builds trust and inspires confidence in the company’s delivery capability.
Resilience — Maintains composure, clarity, and momentum under programme pressure and in complex, fast-moving environments.
Influence & Collaboration — Works effectively across operations, engineering, supply chain, and commercial functions to drive programme success.
Leadership — Builds high-performing, accountable delivery teams with a shared focus on programme success.
Pay: £55,000.00-£65,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Company pension
- Free parking
- On-site parking
Application question(s):
Work Location: In person
