Change & Transformation Lead
7 days ago
Manchester
Company Description Version 1 has celebrated over 28 years in Technology Services and continues to be trusted by global brands to deliver solutions that drive customer success. Our expertise enables our customers to navigate the rapidly changing Digital-First world we live in. We foster strong partnerships with leading technology giants including Microsoft, AWS, Oracle, Red Hat, OutSystems, Snowflake, ensuring that our customers are provided with the highest quality solutions and services. We’re An Award-winning Employer Reflecting How Our Employees Are At The Very Heart Of Version 1 And What We Do • UK & Ireland's premier AWS, Microsoft & Oracle partner, • 3300+ strong, €350/£300m revenue business, • 10+ years as a Great Place to Work in Ireland & UK, • Best Workplace for Women in the UK & Ireland by GPTW, • Best Workplace for Wellbeing in the UK by GPTW Job Description We're looking for an exceptional Change & Transformation Lead to establish and grow our change and transformation capability. This is a pivotal role that combines hands-on client delivery with capability building, business development, and practice leadership. You'll be instrumental in shaping how Version 1 delivers change and transformation consulting whilst building a thriving community of practice. As our Change & Transformation Lead, you'll balance multiple responsibilities: delivering high-impact change programmes with clients, identifying and shaping new opportunities, providing delivery assurance to consultants across engagements, and building the foundations of our change practice—from knowledge assets to community rituals. You'll work across the full change lifecycle, from understanding current state through to embedding lasting transformation, whilst mentoring others and establishing Version 1 as a trusted partner for organisational change. This role is ideal for someone who thrives in a portfolio role—equally comfortable leading complex client transformations, pitching to prospective clients, reviewing delivery quality, and building practice infrastructure. You'll have significant autonomy to shape our change offering and will play a key role in scaling the team as demand grows. Change Management Expertise We're particularly interested in people who: • Have extensive proven experience applying established change management methodologies such as ADKAR, PROSCI, Kotter's 8-Step Process, or Lean Change Management, • Can assess organisational readiness for change, identify risks and barriers, and design tailored change strategies, • Are highly skilled at stakeholder mapping and engagement—identifying change champions, resistors, and influencers across all levels of an organisation, • Can design and deliver sophisticated change communications, training plans, and adoption strategies, • Understand how to measure change success through adoption metrics, behaviour change indicators, and cultural assessment, • Have significant experience creating change impact assessments and transition plans, • Are accomplished at coaching leaders and teams through transformation, building internal change capability Client Delivery Excellence • Have a strong track record of leading complex change programmes from initiation through to embedding, • Are skilled at rapidly assessing and mapping organisations—understanding structures, cultures, processes, and ways of working, • Can facilitate discovery sessions to uncover pain points, blockers, and opportunities for transformation, • Can facilitate high-level collaborative workshops that bring together diverse stakeholders to define transformation goals, • Are skilled at translating strategic ambitions into actionable change initiatives, • Can design and implement change interventions—from capability building and process redesign to cultural change initiatives, • Know when to adapt change approaches based on feedback and emerging insights, • Are highly skilled at navigating difficult conversations and resistance at senior levels Business Development And Opportunity Shaping • Can identify change and transformation opportunities within existing client relationships, • Are confident presenting to senior stakeholders and C-suite executives about the value of change management, • Can translate client challenges into compelling propositions and statements of work, • Have experience contributing to bids, proposals, and pre-sales activities, • Can articulate the business case for change management investment, • Are skilled at positioning change work alongside technical delivery, • Can build trusted advisor relationships that lead to repeat business Delivery Assurance And Quality • Can review change plans, strategies, and deliverables to ensure quality and rigour, • Are able to spot risks and issues in change delivery and provide constructive guidance, • Can support consultants when they encounter blockers or challenges, • Know when to escalate concerns and how to do so constructively, • Can provide coaching and mentoring to less experienced practitioners, • Are comfortable having difficult conversations about delivery quality or approach, • Can balance support with accountability Practice And Capability Building • Have experience building communities of practice, including facilitating sessions and creating engagement, • Can develop knowledge assets such as frameworks, templates, playbooks, and case studies, • Are skilled at capturing and codifying lessons learned from client work, • Can design and deliver internal training and capability-building sessions, • Have experience establishing practice standards, ways of working, and quality criteria, • Can build relationships across the wider V1 community to integrate change expertise, • Are energised by the challenge of building something from the ground up Transformation Domains • Have extensive experience supporting organisations to adopt new ways of working such as agile delivery, product management, or DevOps practices, • Understand the organisational implications of digital transformation deeply, • Have worked on AI implementation programmes—including governance, policy adoption, capability building, and ethical considerations, • Can assess how new products or services impact organisational structures, roles, and ways of working, • Have deep knowledge of organisational resilience and adaptive organisational models, • Are familiar with progressive organisational models (such as sociocracy, self-management, or network-based structures) and when to apply them Systems Thinking And Multidisciplinary Collaboration • Think strategically about interconnections and system-wide impacts, • Can work seamlessly with service designers, product managers, technologists, and other disciplines, • Can visualise complex systems and change journeys through multiple formats, • Understand how organisational change connects to service delivery, technology implementation, and user experience, • Can translate between different disciplinary languages and perspectives Communication And Influence • Have exceptional communication skills across all levels—from front-line staff to board members, • Can build compelling cases for change using evidence, storytelling, and data, • Are highly skilled at influencing without authority and building coalitions for change, • Can create change narratives that inspire and motivate, • Are confident representing Version 1 at conferences, client events, and in thought leadership Leadership And Culture • Lead by example, demonstrating the behaviours and mindsets you want to see in others, • Build psychological safety and create environments where people feel safe to challenge and contribute, • Are committed to growing others and creating opportunities for development, • Can balance commercial awareness with doing the right thing for clients and team, • Demonstrate the kindness, empathy, and curiosity that defines V1's culture Qualifications • Have worked on large-scale digital transformation programmes, • Have experience in pre-sales, business development, or opportunity shaping, • Have line management, mentoring, or practice leadership experience, • Hold PROSCI or similar change management certifications Desirable Experience • Have experience working to the GOV.UK Service Standard or within the public sector, • Have experience with AI governance and implementation, • Have built or scaled a consulting practice or community of practice, • Have experience with agile coaching or organisational design, • Have delivered training or developed learning curricula Additional Information What You'll Be Doing Client Delivery (40-50%) • Lead complex change and transformation programmes with our clients, • Work across the full change lifecycle from assessment through to embedding, • Facilitate high-level workshops and strategic planning sessions, • Coach client leaders through transformation, • Design and implement change strategies, communications, and adoption plans Opportunity Shaping and Pre-sales (20-25%) • Identify change and transformation opportunities within existing accounts, • Contribute to proposals, bids, and statements of work, • Present to prospective clients alongside account teams, • Develop compelling propositions that combine change with service and product delivery, • Build relationships with client decision-makers Delivery Assurance (15-20%) • Review change deliverables and approaches from consultants, • Provide coaching and support when consultants encounter challenges, • Conduct quality reviews of change plans and strategies, • Escalate risks and issues appropriately, • Support less experienced practitioners to develop their skills Practice Building (15-20%) • Establish and facilitate the change and transformation community of practice, • Develop frameworks, templates, playbooks, and other knowledge assets, • Capture case studies and lessons learned from client work, • Design and deliver internal capability-building sessions, • Build relationships across V1 to integrate change expertise, • Establish practice standards and ways of working Typical Projects Education You will work on a range of high-profile transformation projects, which could be in a range of sectors including education, training, social care or the criminal justice system. Examples of the projects you could be working on or supporting include: • Implementing agile ways of working: Leading change management for a government department transitioning from waterfall to agile product management, including designing governance changes and building internal capability, • AI adoption and governance: Shaping and delivering the change strategy for AI tool roll-out in schools, including stakeholder engagement at ministerial level and developing adoption frameworks, • DevOps transformation: Supporting multiple public sector organisations to adopt DevOps practices, whilst building reusable change assets for similar transformations, • Digital service implementation: Providing delivery assurance on organisational change associated with new digital services, ensuring quality of stakeholder engagement and adoption planning, • Organisational resilience: Leading a programme to help local authorities build adaptive ways of working, including applying progressive organisational models, • Product management capability: Building product management maturity whilst developing a repeatable change approach for similar capability-building programmes What we can offer your career A supportive culture and ways of working We lead with kindness, empathy and curiosity. We believe good teams are built on trust, psychological safety and shared purpose. We're committed to creating a no-blame culture, where people support each other, take pride in their work, and lift each other up. We value strong team bonds just as much as strong outcomes. We're building an environment where everyone feels safe, respected and valued—especially people from marginalised or underrepresented communities. We actively welcome diversity of background, identity, experience and thought. You'll be supported to show up as yourself, contribute fully, and grow your career in a way that works for you. A unique opportunity to build something meaningful This is a rare opportunity to shape a practice from the ground up within an established and growing consultancy. You'll have significant autonomy to define how we deliver change and transformation, what our offer looks like, and how we build our community. You'll work with talented colleagues across disciplines and have the backing of leadership to invest in building something that lasts.
