Senior Delivery Manager (Milton Keynes, ENG, GB, MK7 6AA)

code4; Milton Keynes; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading UK university in Milton Keynes is seeking a Senior Delivery Manager to oversee strategic change delivery across departments. This role is crucial for coaching teams and ensuring effective delivery results while managing senior stakeholder expectations. The successful candidate will demonstrate experience in Delivery Management and Agile methodologies and have strong communication skills. The position allows for a hybrid working pattern, combining both remote and office attendance once per week.

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements

Staff Benefits

Qualifications

• Proven knowledge and experience of Delivery Management using a range of techniques.
• Experience of delivering complex changes in academic environments.
• Strong people and negotiation skills with the ability to influence stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Understand when and how to employ Agile and Delivery Management techniques.
• Coach team members and influence stakeholders.
• Monitor and communicate effective delivery progress.
• Remove blockers to delivery by addressing risks and issues.

Skills

Delivery Management techniques

Agile methodologies

Communication skills

Negotiation skills

Education

Relevant degree

Job description

Senior Delivery Manager (Milton Keynes, ENG, GB, MK7 6AA)

Salary: £Change your career, change lives

The Open University is the UK's largest university, a world leader in flexible part‑time education combining a mission to widen access to higher education with research excellence, transforming lives through education. Find out more about us and our mission by watching this short video (you will be taken to YouTube by clicking this link).

About the Role

This role of Senior Delivery Manager sits within the Strategic Delivery Team which provides the university with the capability to deliver high priority, cross unit/faculty and strategic change.

The role holder will work in multi-disciplinary/matrix teams requiring collaboration across the team and with key stakeholders from across the University.

Key Responsibilities

As a Senior Delivery Manager, you will:

• Understand when and how to employ Agile and other Delivery Management techniques - as well as team health and happiness to get the best result.
• Coach team members, and influence stakeholders in Delivery Management techniques.
• Monitor, facilitate and communicate effective delivery progress.
• Remove blockers to successful delivery, by actively addressing risks, issues, and dependencies.
• Continually improve delivery methods and approaches to team working.
• Collaborate with stakeholders and team members to ensure we don't just deliver efficiently - but also achieve valuable outcomes.
• Be an active member of the Delivery, Change and Project community.
• Work with stakeholders to plan the required resources for changes and lead the building of investment cases as appropriate.

About You

Essential Criteria:

The successful candidate will need to demonstrate :

• Proven knowledge and experience of Delivery Management using a range of techniques (for example Agile, APM).
• Experience of delivering complex and high impact changes in academic environments with senior stakeholders.
• Proven experience balancing multiple priorities for complex and high visibility services and products.
• Strong people, communication and negotiation skills and a proven ability to influence stakeholders, third party partners and customers, including the ability to push back, challenge and escalates as appropriate.
• Experience of working in high performance, highly skilled multidisciplinary/matrix teams (large and small) delivering a specific product, service or transformation.
• Skilled at building trust, managing team dynamics and motivating people - applying a servant leader mindset.

Desirable Criteria:

Ideally, the successful candidate will also demonstrate:

• Knowledge of the application of coaching and mentoring techniques.
• Experience of managing project budgets and costing business cases.
• Experience of working with procurement, and supplier management.
• An understanding of how to work in collaboration with colleagues across the institution (professional units and faculties) and the ability to show consideration towards competing demands and pressures.
• Demonstrate a high-level understanding of the university's key processes and patterns (e.g. our presentation pattern, curriculum production, tutor student allocation etc.).

Essential personal abilities and qualities:

• Communication: Communicates effectively with a variety of audiences online and face to face as appropriate; negotiates well and appropriately manages conflict.
• Initiative and problem solving: Uses initiative to identify and solve problems proactively; uses good judgement to refer issues upwards as necessary and identifies and manages risk.
• Planning and organising: Plans, schedules, prioritises and allocates work effectively and delivers to multiple deadlines.
• Budgets: Experienced in working within budget parameters and understanding of estimating / budget setting.
• Teamwork: Is respectful and polite towards others, builds productive working relationships and works collaboratively across organisational boundaries towards common goals.
• Working under pressure: Remains effective and positive even when under pressure.
• Ability to learn: Understands and adapts to new ways of working; is willing and able to engage with, and digest, new information, specialisms and ways of working.
• Continuous improvement: Identifies opportunities for continuous improvement; shows commitment to own professional development; demonstrates enthusiasm, willingness and ability to learn new skills. Creates momentum and excitement around initiatives and new approaches.

Support with your application

If you have any questions, or need support or adjustments relating to your application, the recruitment process, or the role, please contact us on or email quoting the advert reference number.

What's in it for you?

At The Open University, we offer a range of benefits to recognise and reward great work, alongside policies and flexible working that contribute towards a great work life balance. Get all the details of what benefits we offer by visiting our Staff Benefits page (clicking this link will open a new window).

Flexible working

We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it's a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.

It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where the successful candidate can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office it is expected that some attendance in the office will be required when necessary and in response to business needs. We'd expect this to be on average once per week.

Next steps in the Recruitment process

We anticipate that interviews for this role will be taking place online via Microsoft Teams during the week commencing 19 January 2026.

Early closing date notification

We may close this job advert earlier than the published closing date where a satisfactory number of applications are received. We would therefore encourage early applications.

How to apply

To apply for this role please submit the following:

• CV, including how you meet the skills and experience required.
• Complete the additional application questions within our online application form.

You can view your progress and application communications when you are logged into our recruitment system. Please check your spam/junk folders if you do not receive associated email updates.