Cloud Delivery Manager

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.
* 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).
* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* Experience working under security, compliance, and regulatory constraints.

D esirable 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.
* 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.
* 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.