Core Cloud Delivery Manager
12 months, scope to extend
Hybrid, London
Inside IR35
Active SC would be advantageous
Public sector experience required
The Delivery Manager is accountable for the end-to-end delivery of the clients Core Cloud services, ensuring platforms, products, and supplier outcomes are delivered on time, within tolerance, and to production-grade standards.
This is not a ceremonial Agile role. It is a hands-on delivery leadership position operating in a high-assurance, multi-supplier, politically visible environment. You will be expected to control risk, expose reality early, and keep delivery moving despite ambiguity, dependency churn, and security constraints.
Key Responsibilities
Delivery & Execution
- Own delivery across one or more Core Cloud workstreams (platform, migration, security uplift, tooling, or service onboarding).
- Translate strategy, roadmaps, and funding intent into executable delivery plans with clear milestones, dependencies, and tolerances.
- Drive delivery through discovery, alpha, beta, and live phases without losing momentum.
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Actively manage delivery risk, technical debt, and operational constraints
Stakeholder & Governance Management
- Operate confidently across senior stakeholders, leadership, architects, security teams, and commercial functions.
- Run delivery governance forums with clarity and pace, focusing on decisions, not theatre.
- Provide clear, honest delivery reporting (RAG, risks, mitigations, forecast confidence).
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Challenge optimism bias and escalate early when delivery is at risk.
Multi-Supplier & Team Leadership
- Coordinate delivery across multiple suppliers and internal teams, ensuring clear ownership and zero gaps.
- Enable engineering teams by removing blockers rather than adding process drag.
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Foster a delivery culture that values predictability, quality, and operational readiness.
Agile, Lean & Assurance Alignment
- Apply Agile pragmatically using Scrum, Kanban, or hybrid approaches as appropriate.
- Ensure delivery aligns with GDS Service Manual, assurance gates, and NCSC expectations.
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Balance speed with assurance
Financial & Commercial Awareness
- Track delivery against funding envelopes and call out burn-rate risks early.
- Support commercial governance, change control, and scope management.
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Ensure value is demonstrable, not implied.
Essential Skills & Experience
- Proven experience delivering large-scale cloud or platform programmes in complex environments.
- Strong background in public sector digital delivery, ideally within central government.
- Demonstrable experience managing multi-supplier delivery under tight assurance constraints.
- Comfortable working with cloud platforms (AWS) and understanding modern DevOps delivery models.
- Strong grasp of delivery metrics, forecasting, dependency management, and risk control.
- Confident communicator who can challenge senior stakeholders constructively.
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Experience working under security, compliance, and regulatory constraints.
Desirable Experience
- Experience delivering or operating core cloud, shared platforms, or landing zones.
- Familiarity with public sector governance, GDS assessments, or cross-government platforms.
- Exposure to FinOps, platform reliability, or live service operations.
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Experience supporting migration programmes or large-scale onboarding.
Behaviours & Ways of Working
- Outcome-focused: you care about what lands, not what was attempted.
- Comfortable with ambiguity and capable of bringing order without bureaucracy.
- Calm under pressure; credible when things go wrong.
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Willing to say "this won't land" early and back it up with evidence.
What Success Looks Like
- Delivery plans are credible, visible, and trusted.
- Risks are surfaced early and actively mitigated.
- Suppliers deliver outcomes, not excuses.
- Core Cloud services land predictably and are operable from day one.
- Senior stakeholders trust your reporting even when the news isn't good
