Programme Lead: Agile, Product-Led Delivery

LRQA; Birmingham; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

LRQA in Birmingham is seeking a Programme Lead to drive end-to-end delivery of the DSD / Universe transformation, applying agile, product-led and value-focused governance across products and technology layers.

You will coordinate multiple workstreams and dependencies, maintaining a clear delivery path to business value and producing a credible benefits case.

This role offers leadership of a small delivery team and accountability for programme success in a fast-moving environment.

Responsibilities

• Own overall programme success: the delivery of outcomes, benefits and strategic objectives.
• Act as the single point of accountability for programme performance, owning the position and driving recovery where needed.
• Maintain a clear, joined-up view across all products and delivery streams.
• Own the programme narrative, giving a single, coherent view across products, workstreams, technology layers and outcomes, with clarity on progress, direction and delivery confidence.
• Drive an agile, product-led and outcome-based way of working across the programme, keeping delivery focused on client and business value rather than activity.
• Set direction and priorities and give the teams the space to decide how best to deliver, enabling rather than directing the detail.
• Maintain alignment across multiple product backlogs, so the products move together to a shared programme outcome.
• Support a healthy, sustainable delivery flow, protecting pace and quality over the life of the programme.
• Hold the critical path against the benefits case, sequencing delivery so that benefits land when and as planned.
• Ensure delivery is aligned to business value and measurable outcomes, and track when benefits are expected to land, highlighting any slippage early.
• Keep benefits tracked and evidenced against the case rather than asserted, maintaining a clear link between delivery progress and realised impact.
• Ensure architecture and data flows are understood and managed as part of the critical path, working closely with engineering and architecture leadership.
• Lead, manage and develop the two Senior Project Managers, setting clear direction and priorities and giving them the space to own delivery in their areas.
• Provide matrix leadership across delivery resources (Delivery Leads, Senior Business Analysts, Development, DevOps, QA and other specialists), aligning them to programme priorities and deploying them effectively across workstreams.
• Maintain a programme-wide view of capacity and capability gaps, and support decisions on prioritisation, hiring and trade-offs.
• Build an accountable delivery layer so routine decisions are made within the team rather than escalated to programme level.
• Own programme-level sequencing across initiatives, and manage cross-product dependencies so delivery stays aligned.
• Maintain clear visibility of the critical path and delivery constraints.
• Where the programme includes a legacy platform exit, own the end-to-end exit roadmap, covering what is exiting, when and on what dependencies, and manage the risks to successful decommissioning.
• Own programme-level budget oversight, keeping spend controlled and aligned to priorities.
• Maintain visibility of forecast versus actuals, and flag financial risks or pressures early.
• Support investment decisions and trade-offs based on value, risk and delivery constraints.
• Establish and lead proportionate programme governance, just enough to keep control and momentum, running the rhythm from team cadence through to SteerCo.
• Own the programme RAID position, ensuring risks, issues, dependencies and assumptions are clearly identified and actively managed.
• Provide a clear, decision-oriented view of status and trajectory: a Programme Pulse focused on delivery confidence rather than activity.
• Surface risks, trade-offs and required decisions early, help make them once, and escalates where necessary to maintain delivery momentum.
• Build strong relationships with the Chief Digital Officer, the ELT and the business lines, and represent programme direction and delivery confidence clearly to executive stakeholders.
• Work closely with Product, VP Engineering and the Head of Development, the Enterprise Architect, Business Analysis and IT Operations to turn programme priorities into delivered outcomes.

Job description

LRQA in Birmingham is seeking a Programme Lead to drive end-to-end delivery of the DSD / Universe transformation, applying agile, product-led and value-focused governance across products and technology layers.

You will coordinate multiple workstreams and dependencies, maintaining a clear delivery path to business value and producing a credible benefits case.

This role offers leadership of a small delivery team and accountability for programme success in a fast-moving environment.