Head of Release Management

Michael Page (UK); City Of London; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading recruitment firm seeks a Head of Release Management to implement strategies within the financial services sector. The role requires extensive experience in release management and stakeholder engagement, particularly in regulated industries. Offering a daily rate of £869, this position presents an opportunity to contribute to impactful projects in London.

Benefits

Opportunity for high-impact projects

Supportive technology team

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in release and environment management within banking or regulated industries.
• Deep experience in a senior technology leadership role within a highly regulated financial services institution.
• Proven ability to drive large-scale cultural and technological change.

Responsibilities

• Define the multi-year roadmap and implement a Release Management strategy.
• Own the release calendar and oversee planning across multiple platforms.
• Build and lead a high-performing team of release managers and analysts.

Skills

Release management

Stakeholder management

Team leadership

Agile methodologies

DevOps principles

Tools

Kubernetes

CI/CD tools

Job description

• Day rate of £869 inside of IR35
• Opportunity to work on a greenfield implantation

About Our Client

The company is a well-established organisation within the financial services industry with a large and professional team.

Job Description

Strategy & Governance

• Define the multi-year roadmap and develop and implement a Release Management strategy aligned with business objectives, technology roadmap, and regulatory requirements.
• Design, hire, and manage the structure of the team, leveraging both internal staff and external vendors, optimising the balance between cost-efficiency and delivery speed.
• Align with business objectives, regulatory requirements, and technology roadmaps.
• Establish governance frameworks, policies, and standards for release planning, environment lifecycle, and compliance.
• Define and maintain audit-ready controls for release management.
• Partner with other technology teams to drive DevOps adoption, automation, and continuous delivery practices.

Release Management

• Own the release calendar, governance framework, and readiness checkpoints.
• Oversee planning, coordination, and execution of releases across multiple platforms.
• Establish Quality metrics (e.g DORA) and KPIs (e.g., release quality, deployment frequency, change success rate, MTTR) and monitor performance.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for internal and external auditors regarding the release management process, providing evidence of control adherence, automated audit trails, and policy enforcement.

Environment Management

• Define and enforce environment lifecycle policies (provisioning, refresh, decommissioning).
• Ensure non-production environments are available, stable, and compliant with security and data privacy standards.
• Oversee data refresh and masking processes to meet GDPR and regulatory requirements.
• Prevent configuration drift and maintain parity with production where required.

Governance & Compliance

• Ensure compliance with Digital Operational Resilience Act ICT change management, ISO 27001, and internal audit requirements.
• Maintain documentation and evidence for regulatory inspections and audits.
• Conduct risk assessments for releases and environment changes; implement mitigation plans.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Act as the primary escalation point for release and environment issues.
• Engage with business leaders, product owners, and technology teams to align priorities and resolve conflicts.
• Manage relationships with third-party vendors and service providers for environment and release services.

Team Leadership

• Build and lead a high-performing team of release managers, environment coordinators, and analysts.
• Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Develop capability through training, mentoring, and succession planning.

Miscellaneous

• Developing skills pertinent to role.
• Undertaking other reasonable tasks at the discretion of the Head of Section and Gro

The Successful Applicant

A successful Head of Release Management should have:

• Domain Knowledge: Extensive experience in release and environment management within banking or regulated industries managing a global, enterprise-level function and proven ability to manage complex dependencies across multiple programmes with excellent stakeholder management, communication, and leadership skills.
• Financial Sector Experience: Deep experience in a senior technology leadership role within a highly regulated financial services institution, demonstrating fluency with banking compliance and audit cycles.
• Leadership: Proven ability to drive large-scale cultural and technological change across diverse and sometimes conflicting product and operations teams.
• Technical Acumen: Strategic understanding of modern software architecture (microservices), CI/CD toolchains, DevOps principles, and large-scale environment virtualisation/containerisation technologies (e.g., Kubernetes).
• Regulatory Knowledge: Understanding of compliance requirements related to IT Release or Change Management practices, such as DORA, FCA/PRA, ISO standards).
• Methodologies: Experience with scaled agile frameworks (e.g., SAFe) and other SDLC methodologies

What's on Offer

• Daily rate of £869 a day inside IR35.
• Opportunity to contribute to high-impact projects within the financial services industry.
• Be part of a professional and supportive technology team.

If you are ready to take on this exciting opportunity as Head of Release Management, apply now to join a leading organisation in the financial services sector in London