Managing and Developing the Delivery Team

• Provide direct line management and leadership to a team of Project Managers, Business Analysts, and Testers, including junior and apprentice colleagues.
• Establish clear responsibilities, objectives, and performance expectations across the team.
• Hold team members accountable for delivery commitments, quality of work, and professional standards.
• Coach, mentor, and develop colleagues, improving their confidence, capability, and effectiveness.
• Provide practical guidance to Project Managers on planning, stakeholder management, risk management, and delivery challenges.
• Support Business Analysts in improving the quality, clarity, and completeness of requirements, ensuring these are suitable for development and testing.
• Coordinate testing resources and activities to ensure appropriate test coverage, defect management, and business acceptance.
• Identify development needs, skills gaps, and opportunities to improve team performance.
• Conduct regular performance reviews, provide constructive feedback, and address underperformance where necessary.
• Build a collaborative, accountable, and delivery-focused culture where issues are raised early, and individuals take ownership of their responsibilities.

Project Governance and Delivery Improvement

• Take ownership of developing, implementing, and continuously improving the existing project governance framework.
• Establish practical and proportionate project management standards that provide appropriate control without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Ensure projects have clearly defined objectives, scope, deliverables, ownership, success criteria, and governance arrangements.
• Improve the consistency and quality of project initiation, planning, reporting, risk management, dependency tracking, and change control.
• Establish clear reporting and escalation processes, ensuring senior stakeholders have an accurate understanding of project status and delivery confidence.
• Support the coordination of competing project priorities and shared delivery resources across the business.
• Identify capacity constraints and resource conflicts, making recommendations on priorities and delivery commitments.
• Ensure appropriate governance and approval processes are followed throughout the project lifecycle.
• Maintain effective oversight of project risks, issues, decisions, and dependencies, ensuring accountability for agreed actions.
• Introduce lessons learned and continuous improvement activities to strengthen delivery performance across the team.
• Adapt governance and delivery approaches to suit different project types, including internal software development, infrastructure change, and third-party implementations.

Stakeholder Engagement and Business Change

• Build effective working relationships with senior leaders, business stakeholders, operational teams, and technical specialists.
• Understand business requirements, priorities, and operational dependencies, translating these into clear and achievable delivery objectives.
• Challenge stakeholders constructively where expectations, requirements, or proposed timescales are unrealistic.
• Communicate technical issues, risks, and dependencies in clear business language, explaining their impact on delivery and operations.
• Manage stakeholder expectations through transparent communication, accurate reporting, and timely escalation.
• Coordinate business readiness activities, including communications, training, user acceptance testing, and implementation planning.
• Ensure the impact of technology change on internal operations, external customers, and other stakeholders is properly understood and managed.
• Work with business sponsors to ensure project outcomes and expected benefits are clearly defined and appropriately tracked.
• Promote strong collaboration between the business, project delivery teams, and technical functions.

Essential Skills and Experience

• Significant experience personally managing and successfully delivering complex IT, software development, or technology transformation projects.
• Proven experience delivering projects through internal software development teams, rather than exclusively managing external technology suppliers or packaged software implementations.
• Strong understanding of the full software development lifecycle, including requirements analysis, solution design, development, testing, UAT, deployment, and operational handover.
• Ability to challenge development estimates, technical assumptions, delivery plans, and progress updates constructively and confidently.
• Demonstrable experience directly managing, coaching, mentoring, and developing project delivery professionals.
• Experience setting performance expectations, managing individual performance, and improving team capability.
• Experience establishing, implementing, or improving project governance frameworks, delivery standards, and reporting processes.
• Strong project planning and scheduling skills, including the management of shared resources, dependencies, and competing priorities.
• Experience managing multiple workstreams involving technical specialists, operational teams, and business stakeholders.
• Good understanding of Agile, Waterfall, and hybrid delivery methodologies, and the ability to apply appropriate governance and controls.
• Strong risk, issue, dependency, budget, and change-control management skills.
• Experience coordinating Business Analysis and software testing activities within technology projects.
• Confidence engaging with senior stakeholders, challenging expectations, and communicating difficult delivery messages.
• Ability to translate complex technical issues into clear business impacts, risks, and recommended actions.
• Experience managing project budgets, resources, and delivery financials.
• Strong analytical, organisational, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• A proactive, accountable, and delivery-focused approach, with the resilience to manage challenging projects and competing demands.

Desirable Skills and Experience

• Experience delivering solutions using Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Dataverse, Azure, or related Microsoft technologies.
• Practical experience using Azure DevOps, Jira, Microsoft Project, or equivalent project and development management tools.
• Experience working within a shared services operating model supporting multiple business units or organisations.
• Experience in recruitment, staffing, payroll, finance, or other business-critical, transaction-intensive environments.
• Experience recovering underperforming projects or improving established delivery functions.
• Experience leading teams comprising Project Managers, Business Analysts, and Testers.
• PRINCE2 Practitioner, AgilePM, Scrum, or an equivalent recognised project management qualification.
• Experience delivering technology change across multi-site or multi-brand organisations.
• Experience coordinating business change, operational readiness, and service transition activities.

The Person

You will be someone who:

• Leads from the front — takes personal responsibility for delivery and is prepared to get involved in the detail when required.
• Understands technology delivery — knows how internal software development works and can distinguish genuine progress from optimistic reporting.
• Challenges constructively — has the confidence to question developers, technical specialists, and senior stakeholders while maintaining positive working relationships.
• Develops people — takes an active interest in coaching, mentoring, and improving the performance of colleagues.
• Creates accountability — sets clear expectations, follows through on commitments, and addresses problems rather than allowing them to continue.
• Brings structure and clarity — can organise complex projects, establish effective controls, and