Principal Product Manager - Central Gov

Hippo; Manchester; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Contributory Pension Scheme

25 Days Holiday

Perkbox access

Critical illness cover

Life assurance and death in service

Job summary

Hippo Digital is recruiting for Principal Product Managers to join our Central Government Sector. You will lead strategic product direction, influence policy, and drive delivery of high-value public services at scale, shaping portfolio visions for citizens.

You will coach Senior Product Managers, champion user-centred design and work with major departments. The role demands seasoned governance, strategic thinking and collaboration with executive stakeholders across government.

Qualifications

• Strong strategic GDS experience and evidence of translating complex public policy and tech trends into actionable product investment decisions.
• Architect and lead change strategies aligning delivery with long-term departmental goals.
• Build portfolio-level strategy and establish metrics to review performance against citizen value.
• Define and influence organizational structure, processes and culture for cross-department collaboration.
• Anticipate long-term threats and opportunities, influencing policy and investment for resilience and security.
• Lead collaboration with internal teams, external partners and senior stakeholders with evidence-based business cases.
• Demonstrate authoritative knowledge of the GDS Service Standard and overseeing portfolios through assessments.

Responsibilities

• Own and lead strategic direction of areas within the Hippo product community.
• Define and lead overarching strategic vision, roadmap and business models for Central Government portfolios.
• Represent product function at executive level, shape government policy and advocate product-centric changes with senior leadership.
• Cascading portfolio objectives from government mandates to individual product goals.
• Define and implement delivery and risk management frameworks across a portfolio.
• Drive improvement of user research standards to keep citizen needs at heart of public sector work.
• Define data, AI and innovation strategies ensuring ethical use of tech and compliance with standards.
• Mentor and coach senior leaders, building capability across the public sector product profession.

Skills

Strategic product leadership

GDS experience

Agile delivery

Stakeholder management

Job description

About the Role

Hippo Digital is recruiting for Principal Product Managers to join our growing Central Government Sector. As a strategic product leader in the public sector, you will be instrumental in shaping portfolio visions, navigating and influencing complex policy environments, and overseeing the delivery of impactful digital services at scale. You’ll champion strategic product direction across portfolios, empower leaders and multi-disciplinary teams, and drive the delivery of high-value outcomes for citizens.

As a Principal Consultant, specialising in Product, you’ll already be an expert in agile delivery at a strategic scale within government. You will bring proven portfolio-level experience working across major Central Government departments, such as DWP, MoJ, DfE, MoD, and ONS. You will be a leader of leaders, coaching Senior Product Managers and advocating for user-centred design across government. Hippo will provide exciting opportunities to represent the product function at the executive level, influence key departmental stakeholders, shape policy, and lead public sector digital transformation.

Your role in a nutshell:

• Owning and leading the strategic direction of areas within the Hippo product community. Leveraging your experience to develop and grow the community.
• Defining and leading the overarching strategic vision, roadmap, and business models for entire product portfolios within Central Government.
• Representing the product function at the executive level, shaping government policy, and advocating for product-centric changes with senior departmental leadership.
• Establishing overarching strategy and objectives for a portfolio, cascading objectives from government mandates and departmental missions down to individual product goals.
• Defining and implementing delivery and risk management frameworks across a portfolio, proactively mitigating strategic challenges in highly regulated environments.
• Driving the improvement of organisational standards for user research, ensuring citizen needs are at the heart of all public sector product work.
• Defining the data, AI, and innovation strategies for the portfolio, ensuring the ethical application of emerging technologies and strict adherence to central government standards.
• Mentoring and coaching Senior leaders, fostering institutional learning and building capability across the public sector product profession.

About the Candidate

People are at the centre of everything we do. We’re a diverse and close-knit community united by a love for solving complex problems for public sector clients and citizens. We take a common sense approach to getting things done. We get things wrong, we learn from experience and we adapt. We stay curious and never stop learning.

We don’t need you to have specific certificates, but we do need strong strategic GDS experience and evidence of your ability to:

• Translate complex public policy, external context, and emerging technology trends, including public sector AI adoption, into actionable strategic decisions and product investment areas for a government portfolio.
• Architect and lead change strategies that align project delivery with long-term departmental goals, addressing underlying processes, tools, and cultural norms.
• Build portfolio-level strategy and establish metrics frameworks to regularly review performance against citizen value and initiate strategic pivots based on data-driven insights.
• Define and influence organisational structure, processes, and culture to enable effective cross-departmental collaboration and psychological safety.
• Anticipate long-term threats and opportunities, influencing government policy and investment to embed resilience and security as foundational principles.
• Lead collaboration efforts with a wide range of internal teams, external partners, and senior stakeholders, successfully presenting compelling, evidence-based business cases to senior civil servants.
• Demonstrate authoritative knowledge of the GDS Service Standard, championing best practices at an organisational level, and successfully overseeing portfolios of products through GDS service assessments across Discovery, Alpha, Beta, and Live phases.

About The Company

Alongside working with some of the most talented people out there and on-top of a competitive salary, which we’re transparent about from the outset, you can also expect a range of benefits:

• Contributory Pension Scheme (Hippo 6% & Employee 2%)
• 25 Days Holiday plus UK Public Holidays
• Perkbox access for a wide range of discounts
• Critical illness cover
• Life assurance and death in service cover
• Volunteer days
• Cycle-to-work scheme for the avid cyclists
• Salary sacrifice electric vehicles scheme
• Season ticket loans
• Financial and general wellbeing sessions
• Flexible benefits scheme with options of:
• Private health cover
• Private dental cover
• Additional company pension contributions
• Additional holidays (up to an extra 2 days)
• Wellbeing contribution
• Charity contributions
• Tree planting

Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Hippo

At Hippo, we’re dedicated to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace that works for everyone. We understand that having a diverse team unlocks our capacity for innovation, creativity and problem solving. Only by building a community of diverse perspectives, cultures and socio‑economic backgrounds can we create an environment where all can contribute and thrive.

We actively encourage applications from underrepresented groups including women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent and people with disabilities. We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment process that reflects our workplace culture. We are a registered Disability Confident Employer, Mindful Employer, Endometriosis Friendly Employer and a member of the Armed Forces Covenant. Hippo continually strives to remove barriers, provide accommodations and offer reasonable adjustments to ensure equity throughout our practices.

Hi, we’re Hippo

At Hippo, we design with empathy and build for impact. We do this by combining data-informed evidence, human‑centred design and software engineering. We're a digital services partner who is genuinely invested in helping our clients thrive as modern organisations. Our delivery methodology is truly agile, from concept to reality, supporting innovation and continuous improvement to achieve your desired outcomes.

We firmly believe that technology should serve humanity, not the other way around. We take a human‑centred approach to everything we do because we understand that complex problems require a service design approach. This means understanding how users behave and ensuring our solutions work for them in the real world.

Our combination of data, design, and engineering delivers bespoke digital services that make a positive and meaningful impact on organisations and society.

Have a look through our Website at Our Story & Purpose, Our Culture & Values, Case Studies and Our Solutions & Services to find out some more!

Hippo Locations

We are headquartered in Leeds and have offices across the UK in Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, London and Bristol. We're on the lookout for top talent nationwide but you need to be located within reasonable travelling distance from one of our offices. Given the dynamic nature of a consulting business, you may be required to work on-site at a Hippo office or at an in/out of town client location for a number of days per week (client dependent) and therefore candidates will need to be open/flexible to travel and working on one of those sites at least 2 days per week. We offer a generous relocation support package of up to £8,000 (please ask for terms and conditions) to help make your move a smooth one.