Senior Delivery Manager -AI

Job description

As a senior delivery manager, you will be accountable for effective delivery of complex, high-risk products and services. You will be expected to have strong communication skills and engage with senior stakeholders both internally and across government.

You’ll be core to making decisions that build a high performing team, adept at breaking down barriers for your team and both planning at a higher level and getting into the detail to make things happen when needed. It is important you can facilitate an inclusive team environment where innovation and challenge are welcomed from all colleagues. 

As a Senior Delivery Manager, you'll: 

• lead and motivate multi-disciplinary teams, helping them organise and plan their work, ensuring they deliver products and services that actually meet users’ needs
• co-create and co-own plans and progress using recognised lean/agile practices, and communicate status to more senior people and users appropriately
• provide useful and accurate delivery metrics to facilitate continual improvement, efficiency and effectiveness of teams delivery to the agreed goals, actively tackling impediments, risks and blockers, and communicating and escalating where necessary
• work with senior leaders and stakeholders in GDS to ensure all needs are understood and to influence strategic direction
• manage stakeholders to ensure strategic alignment and effective communication, taking into account organisational context and different needs and priorities, dealing constructively with conflicting views 
• work in partnership with product and technical leads on high profile work in ambiguous, complex and/or uncertain domains
• promote continual improvement, good communication and collaboration across the organisation using the principles of agile at scale

Person specification

It's essential that you will have a proven track record of:

• using agile practices to ensure the iterative and timely delivery of products and services that serve real user needs 
• facilitating effective workshops which give a voice to all participants and provide concrete outputs that enable delivery
• leading successful high functioning multidisciplinary delivery teams which are aligned to the organisation’s strategic priorities and the needs of stakeholders
• actively tackling impediments, risks and blockers, and communicating and escalating where necessary

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £55,403, Government Digital Service contributes £16,050 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:

• flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
• a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%
• 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
• an extra day off for the King’s birthday
• an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• paid volunteering leave
• a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• death in service benefits
• cycle to work scheme and facilities
• access to an employee discounts scheme
• 10 learning days per year
• volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
• access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

Any move to Government Digital Service from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk 

Office attendance
The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.
DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

Things you need to know

Selection process details

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• a simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and 2 role related questions - up to 750 words. 
• a 60 minute video interview 

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

While we value the use of AI technology to enhance our daily work, we also value the personal touch and urge applicants to write cover letters without the use of AI to emphasise their own unique experiences.

In the event we receive a high volume of applications, we will conduct the initial sift against the lead criteria which is: 

• using agile practices to ensure the iterative and timely delivery of products and services that serve real user needs 

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours: 

• changing and improving
• making effective decisions
• leadership
• delivering at pace

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Government Digital and Data Capability Framework for the Senior Delivery Manager role: 

• Agile and Lean practices
• Life cycle management
• Maintaining delivery momentum
• Planning
• Team dynamics and collaboration

Recruitment Timeline

Sift completion: 16th June 2025

Panel interviews: 23rd June 2025

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

Sponsorship

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.