Product - Release Manager

Whitbread; Houghton Regis; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare

Pension

Discounts

Annual bonus

Job summary

Whitbread seeks an experienced Release Manager to coordinate vendor-led releases, patches and technology changes across Dayforce and other services. You’ll manage release lifecycles, ensuring testing, approvals, deployment readiness and post-release activities are governed.

You will work across Technology, People teams, suppliers and stakeholders to minimise disruption and improve delivery. This hybrid role at Whitbread Court, Dunstable offers close collaboration with a 38k+ team and

Qualifications

• Experience planning, coordinating and executing releases with minimal downtime.
• Hands-on ITIL change-management processes including CAB.
• Experience owning incidents and liaising with stakeholders for restoration.

Responsibilities

• Own and maintain integrated release schedules for vendor and internal changes.
• Coordinate releases across vendors, operations and business units to ensure quality delivery.
• Establish release policies, governance and rollback strategies to minimise disruption.
• Translate complex vendor-release info into clear updates for senior stakeholders.

Skills

Release management

ITIL change management

Incident management

Cross-functional coordination

HR/payroll systems

Job description

We’re looking for an experienced Release Manager to coordinate the controlled delivery of vendor-led product releases, patches and technology changes across Dayforce and other supported services...

We’re looking for an experienced Release Manager to coordinate the controlled delivery of vendor-led product releases, patches and technology changes across Dayforce and other supported services.

Working across Technology, People teams, suppliers and operational stakeholders, you’ll provide end-to-end coordination of the release lifecycle. You’ll ensure impacts, dependencies, testing, assurance, approvals, communications, deployment readiness and post-release activities are effectively planned, evidenced and governed.

This is an opportunity to play a central role in delivering stable, reliable releases that support evolving business needs, minimise disruption and continuously improve how technology change is delivered.

Role:

Release Manager

Contract Type:

Full time, Permanent

Location:

Whitbread Court, Dunstable (Hybrid, 3 days per week)

Why You’ll Love It Here

• Healthcare: Family BUPA healthcare
• 10% matched pension
• Discounts: Up to 60% discount on Premier Inn stays and 25% discount on our Restaurant brand
• Annual Incentive of up to 20% Bonus

Check out all our benefits here: https://www.whitbreadcareers.com/about-us/benefits/

What You’ll Be Doing

You’ll own and maintain integrated release schedules covering vendor releases, patches and internally initiated changes, identifying key milestones, dependencies, deployment windows, testing periods and stakeholder decision points. You’ll coordinate releases across vendors, operational teams and the wider business, ensuring they are delivered in a timely, controlled and high-quality way.

You’ll establish and maintain effective release policies, standards and governance, while overseeing deployment and rollback strategies designed to minimise service disruption. You’ll manage defects identified during release testing through to resolution and work closely with QA, development, security, infrastructure, support and operations teams to maintain high software-quality standards.

You’ll also manage change-control processes, ensuring appropriate risk assessments, approvals and stakeholder communications are in place. Following each release, you’ll analyse issues, track root causes and use the findings to strengthen future delivery. You’ll translate complex vendor-release information into clear updates for senior stakeholders and business teams, while maintaining release documentation, deployment guides and rollback plans.

What You’ll Need

• Experience planning, coordinating and executing technology releases with minimal downtime and service disruption.
• Experience managing releases across development, test, staging and production environments.
• Must have experience working with multi-regional HR and payroll solutions.
• Hands-on knowledge of ITIL-based change management, including Change Advisory Board processes.
• Experience owning and managing major incidents, including stakeholder communications and the restoration of critical services.

Be part of our Technology Team at Whitbread

Through collaboration, passion and hiring the smartest minds, our Technology team builds products and services that are used by 38,000 of us at Whitbread and millions of guests. Everything from an eCommerce website that handles £2 billion in transactions per year, applications that are scalable across our 1,200 hotel and restaurants, devices that enable our teams and guests to have a seamless experience, all whilst keeping data secure. Together we’re building the hotel of the future.

We believe that everyone is unique and there should be no barriers to entry and no limits to ambition. We are committed to being an inclusive organisation that values diversity and welcomes your application whatever your background or situation.

Under-represented groups such as women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities & members of the LGBTQIA+ community (those who identify as lesbian, gay, bi, trans and non-binary or those who use a different LGBTQIA+ term), are strongly encouraged to build a career with us. Speak to us about workplace adjustments, part-time and flexible working. Where possible we will support this.

Job ref: 211278-4492

Advertised: 14 Sep 2026