Lead Product Manager
2 days ago
St Albans
Lead Product Manager – Programme Mobilisation (Contract) Hybrid – Stevenage/Andover (3 days onsite) Up to £710 per day (Inside IR35) Hybrid working – Stevenage Initial contract 6 months (extensions likely, 3 - 5 year programme) A major, high-profile transformation programme is seeking a senior Lead Product Manager to provide programme-level product leadership during mobilisation and early delivery. This role is not about sprint management or backlog ownership. An established Product Owner is handling team-level delivery. The focus here is strategic: ensuring the service will function end-to-end, aligning delivery across multiple teams and suppliers, and rebuilding confidence with senior customer stakeholders in a high-scrutiny environment. You will operate as the senior product authority, working closely with programme leadership to provide clarity, direction and assurance across a complex delivery landscape. Key focus areas: • Owning the product vision and roadmap at the programme level, • Ensuring alignment across teams, suppliers and dependent workstreams, • Identifying and managing cross-programme dependencies and delivery risks, • Representing the product at senior governance and decision-making forums, • Providing leadership, direction and challenge to Product Owners and delivery teams To be considered for this role you must: • Have deep experience delivering public-facing services in UK government., • Experience launching services you’ve built through government service assessments., • Be extremely literate in the GDS standard. In addition to the above, this role will suit someone who: • Has previously worked with the MOD or similar, • Has operated at Lead Product Manager or Head of Product level on large, complex programmes, • Brings gravitas and credibility when engaging senior stakeholders, • Thinks in terms of services, outcomes and alignment rather than features, • Is comfortable operating in ambiguity and under scrutiny