Senior Delivery Manager

Job summary

We’re looking for an experienced and forward thinking Senior Delivery Manager to help shape and mature our agile delivery capability at the UK Hydrographic Office.

In this role, you’ll lead one or more multidisciplinary teams, ensuring effective delivery, removing barriers, and embedding agile governance that empowers teams to succeed. You will be passionate about improving organisational delivery capability and guiding teams to achieve their best and you will be a confident leader, coach and collaborator. You’ll also play a key part in helping UKHO drive delivery excellence, embed effective governance and and strengthen its organisational agility.

At UKHO, flexible working is our default we trust our people to deliver outcomes. You’ll benefit from excellent learning opportunities, a collaborative and inclusive culture, and a strong community of delivery professionals.

Our work is guided by our core values: Together, Responsibility, Excellence, and Discovery.

As a Senior Delivery Manager at the UKHO, you will play a key role in strengthening our delivery capability and enabling our teams to deliver high quality digital products and services. You’ll champion effective governance, empower teams to work collaboratively, and drive continuous improvement across the organisation.

Hybrid working

This job role can be worked on a hybrid basis, which is an informal, non-contractual and voluntary arrangement, working between the office in Taunton and remotely within the UK. Attendance in the office is required in accordance with business need.

Additional Information:

Part-time hours will be considered (minimum of 30 per week)

Job description

• Lead and support multiple delivery teams to deliver high value outcomes, ensuring alignment with business goals and organisational priorities.
• Establish and embed effective delivery governance that balances agile flexibility with accountability.
• Coach and mentor delivery teams and leaders to build maturity in enabling self organisation and sustainable delivery.
• Remove barriers to progress, manage risks and dependencies, and create the conditions for teams to thrive and maintain delivery momentum.
• Drive continuous improvement by analysing delivery performance, identifying areas for optimisation, and implementing improvements to ways of working.
• Contribute to the growth of UKHO’s wider delivery community, sharing best practice and helping to evolve our organisational delivery capability.
• Conduct internal Digital Governance Framework (DGF)/ GDS assessments and coach teams through the assessment process.
• At present no line management responsibilities but may change in the future.

Person specification

Essential Skills and Experience:

• Strong leadership and coaching skills, with the ability to inspire, guide and develop teams to deliver high quality digital products and services.
• Deep understanding of agile delivery principles, practices, and governance with the ability to adapt frameworks pragmatically to suit organisational context and maturity.
• Proven experience leading complex digital deliveries across multi-disciplinary teams, ensuring effective collaboration and accountability.
• Skilled in improving delivery performance and organisational agility through continuous data driven insights, and the removal of systemic barriers.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, able to align diverse perspectives and maintain focus on shared outcomes.
• Experience in developing and embedding delivery governance at scale within an agile organisation.
• Active participation in agile or delivery management communities, sharing knowledge and best practice.
• Sound knowledge of modern digital delivery practices, including continuous integration, continuous deployment, and iterative delivery of value.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Changing and Improving
• Delivering at Pace
• Communicating and Influencing
• Leadership

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Deep understanding of agile delivery principles, practices, and governance with the ability to adapt frameworks pragmatically to suit organisational context and maturity.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £61,605, UK Hydrographic Office contributes £17,846 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

At the UK Hydrographic Office, it's very important to us that our people feel valued.

We offer a huge range of benefits such as training and development, well-being support, flexible/ homeworking, a fantastic state of the art building, high spec equipment, and so much more.

See our attached Candidate Information Pack for more details.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

How to Apply:

When you click 'Apply now' you will be asked to attach your anonymised CV and input a 500 word supporting statement on the criteria below.

Timeline:

• Advert Closes for applications: 19/04/26
• Shortlisting: w/c 27/04/26
• Interviews: w/c 10/05/26

We will try to meet the dates set out in the advert. There may be occasions when these dates change. You will be provided with sufficient notice of the confirmed dates.

Sift/Shortlist Criteria:

All applications are processed anonymously. You will be short-listed against the following criteria using the information provided in your supporting statement.

Experience:

• Strong leadership and coaching skills, with the ability to inspire, guide and develop teams to deliver high quality digital products and services.
• Deep understanding of agile delivery principles, practices, and governance with the ability to adapt frameworks pragmatically to suit organisational context and maturity (lead criteria).
• Proven experience leading complex digital deliveries across multi-disciplinary teams, ensuring effective collaboration and accountability.

CV will be used for information.

Interview Criteria:

You will be interviewed against the following criteria:

Technical:

• Deep understanding of agile delivery principles, practices, and governance with the ability to adapt frameworks pragmatically to suit organisational context and maturity (this will be assessed against the presentation).

Civil Service Behaviours (SEO level):

• Changing and Improving (lead criteria)
• Delivering at Pace
• Communication and Influencing
• Leadership

See here for further information: Success Profiles - Civil Service Behaviours (publishing.service.gov.uk)

The Lead Criteria at shortlist will be used in the event of a large volumes of applications and at the interview stage used in the event of tie-breaks in scoring.

Process:

• Single Stage Interview via TEAMS. You will be contacted to book a suitable slot if you are shortlisted (see our Candidate Pack for further information)
• Interview will be with a panel of no more than 3 people and will last approximately 1 hour. In the interview, you will be required to give a 10 presentation. More details will follow in the invitation to interview.

Onboarding Checks

In the event you are offered a role with us, you will be required to go through Basic Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) checks which will include Employment and Right to Work Checks. You will also need to apply for SC (Security Clearance), but you may be able to start your role before gaining this. Please see our attached Candidate Pack for further details and Terms.

Please note, we are unable to offer visa sponsorship.

Nationality requirements:

SC – non reserved
This is a Ministry of Defence non-reserved post and although open to UK, British Commonwealth and European Economic Area nationals, successful applicants will require a security clearance (SC) and therefore need to have resided in the UK for a minimum of 12 consecutive months within the last 5 years.

Eligibility

Due to the secure nature of our work, there may be eligibility restrictions if you hold dual nationality or are not a British Citizen. We will consider each application on a case-by-case basis. We will ask you in our application form to confirm your place of birth and details of any dual or previous nationalities.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : recruitment.queries@ukho.gov.uk
• Email : recruitment.queries@ukho.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : recruitment.queries@ukho.gov.uk

Further information

Further Information

The Department’s recruitment processes are underpinned by the requirement of selection for appointment based on merit, open and fair competition as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles, details of which can be found at http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact recruitment.queries@ukho.gov.uk If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can further contact the Civil Service Commission at: civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk or view more details at http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk

Attachments

UKHO Candidate Information Pack - Tech Opens in new window (pdf, 5887kB)Additional Pay Information Opens in new window (pdf, 163kB)