SC Cleared Change Manager/Change Lead (Bristol)

Rate: £750 to £800 per day (Inside IR35)

Location: Bristol (2 to 3 days per week on-site)

Duration: Initial contract till 31 March 2027

Clearance: Active SC Clearance

Broad description of role:

To lead the design and delivery of the change strategy, translating the operating model into lived behaviours, mobilising stakeholders, and driving readiness, engagement, and cultural adoption at scale.

Specific responsibilities include:

• Sets and leads the overall change and engagement strategy: Defines the end-to-end change journey, engagement architecture, and narrative linking operating model, IWA, and Defence Reform delivery.
• Designs and delivers structured stakeholder engagement across a complex system: Actively manages senior and specialist stakeholder groups (e.g. HRBPs, BCMs, culture leads), including resetting engagement approaches to ensure alignment, focus, and manageable input into core products.
• Leads Trade Union engagement and partnership approach for change: Designs and delivers TU engagement strategy, sessions, and materials (e.g. IWA / Mixed Economy Workforce), including shaping forward engagement plans and enabling co-creation on workforce change.
• Owns change readiness insight, assessment and reporting into senior governance: Co-develops and calibrates Change Impact Assessments (CIA) and readiness baselines for Defence Reform governance, providing an evidence-based view of organisational readiness and risk.
• Leads organisational effectiveness (OE) and culture change interventions at scale: Designs and delivers flagship interventions (Leader Labs, Basecamp, Future Fit) to embed behaviours, leadership expectations, and high-performance culture across the Group.
• Builds leadership capability to land the operating model: Develops and delivers leadership programmes and content that translate the mission, culture, and operating model into practical leadership behaviours and decisions.
• Establishes and mobilises change networks and ambassador capability: Creates and guides networks (e.g. change ambassadors, culture leads) to enable local ownership, consistent messaging, and scaled delivery of change activity.
• Develops core change artefacts and engagement products for the programme: Produces and iterates key materials including TU engagement packs, workforce transformation plans, structural implementation proposals, and OE delivery plans to drive structured implementation.
• Embeds data-driven culture and change measurement: Establishes cultural maturity frameworks, change readiness metrics, and feedback loops (surveys, focus groups, case studies) to track progress and refine interventions.
• Adapts delivery approach in response to system feedback and evolving context: Continuously refines engagement and OE delivery (e.g. piloting cohorts, tailoring interventions, sequencing activity) to manage uncertainty and maximise impact.
• Aligns change activity to programme dependencies and critical path: Integrates change delivery with programme milestones and dependencies, ensuring engagement and culture interventions land at the right time to enable implementation.
• Supports operating model embedding at team and squad level: Contributes to design and implementation of "change journey" roles, governance, and guidance to ensure adoption, behavioural shift, and sustained benefit realisation locally