Transition and Mobilisation Lead

Central government transformation programme | 3 to 6 months, extension likely | Hybrid, flexible location | Live SC clearance required

Most large outsourcing programmes are not lost in the design phase. They are lost in the weeks either side of go-live. This role owns those weeks.

You will take a major central government programme from contract award to a working service: mobilising incoming suppliers, running transition and cutover, and getting operations to a point where they can be handed to business as usual without the public noticing anything happened.

What you will actually do

• Own the mobilisation, transition and cutover plans, and hold suppliers to them
• Run supplier onboarding, readiness testing and assessment, and be willing to say when a supplier is not ready
• Establish who is responsible for what across incoming suppliers, outgoing providers and client teams, so nothing falls between them
• Build contingency and rollback positions that have been tested rather than assumed
• Give the programme board an honest readiness assessment ahead of each go/no-go decision
• Take the service through stabilisation into BAU against exit criteria agreed in advance

What we are looking for

Someone who has done this before rather than planned it. That means a track record of mobilisation or transition on major programmes, through to a live service, and ideally at least one that went wrong and had to be recovered. We are more interested in what you learned from a difficult transition than in a list of clean ones.

You will need the judgement to tell a real blocker from a nervous one, the credibility to hold a supplier to account without breaking the relationship, and the nerve to make a no-go call when the evidence supports it. That last one is the hardest part of the job and the most valuable.

Public sector outsourcing experience, ITIL service transition knowledge, and exposure to TUPE and workforce transfer are all useful. None of them are dealbreakers on their own.

Clearance

Live SC clearance is required at the point of application. Clearance sponsored by a large central government department is an advantage, since it shortens mobilisation considerably. We cannot sponsor new clearance for this engagement.

Rate

We have not fixed a rate. Tell us what you work to and what you would bring for it, and we will have a straight conversation about it early rather than at offer stage. As a guide, we are benchmarking this role in the region of £600 to £700 per day..

To apply, send your CV with your clearance level, sponsoring department, expiry date, availability and day rate expectation. Those five details let us come back to you quickly.