Senior Programme Manager

Acuity Analytics; Greater London; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Senior Programme Manager for Acuity Analytics leads an enterprise legacy modernization programme within Banking & Capital Markets. You will drive end-to-end delivery of critical platforms, data flows, and integrations to ensure continuity, compliance, and measurable business outcomes.

The role requires steering large-scale transformations across complex environments, including mainframe modernization, data migration, API-led integration, and cloud or hybrid adoption, with strong governance and

Qualifications

• Extensive experience leading large-scale legacy modernization across complex enterprise environments.
• Experience with mainframe or monolithic platform modernization, data migration, and API-led integration.
• Strong governance, risk management, and executive communication skills.
• Ability to coordinate cross-functional teams across business, architecture, engineering, QA, DevOps, data, cyber security.

Responsibilities

• Lead overall planning, governance, coordination, and execution of an enterprise legacy modernization programme across business, technology, data, infrastructure, risk, compliance, operations, and vendor workstreams.
• Define and maintain the integrated modernization roadmap, sequencing strategy, milestone plan, dependency map, RAID register, delivery calendar, and benefits tracking approach.
• Partner with architecture, engineering, data, security, infrastructure, and business teams to align modernization scope across rehost, replatform, refactor, re-architect, rebuild, replace, retain, data migration, integration, and decommissioning decisions.
• Establish and run programme governance forums, including steering updates, design authority reviews, architecture decision forums, delivery checkpoints, RAID reviews, readiness reviews, and escalation management.
• Coordinate modernization delivery across application remediation, data migration, cloud or hybrid platform enablement, integration redesign, API adoption, testing, performance validation, security controls, and operational readiness.
• Manage senior stakeholder communication, expectations, approvals, funding decisions, prioritisation trade-offs, and alignment across client leadership, internal leadership, delivery teams, vendors, and implementation partners.
• Own client expectation management by maintaining transparent communication, clarifying scope and priorities, aligning delivery commitments, managing escalations, and ensuring stakeholder confidence throughout modernization delivery.
• Track programme risks, issues, assumptions, dependencies, actions, architecture decisions, data risks, cutover risks, regulatory impacts, and operational constraints, ensuring timely mitigation and clear ownership.
• Drive programme-level financial, resource, scope, schedule, quality, benefits, capacity, vendor deliverable, and dependency tracking to support informed leadership decisions.
• Support target operating model documentation, role clarity, team mobilisation, onboarding, knowledge transfer, service transition, and business-as-usual handover planning.
• Ensure modernization execution follows agreed engineering, security, data governance, documentation, compliance, change control, release management, audit readiness, and quality standards.
• Facilitate cross-workstream planning, prioritisation, dependency resolution, integrated test planning, migration rehearsal governance, go-live readiness, cutover planning, rollback planning, and hyper-care coordination.
• Coordinate legacy platform coexistence, transition states, service continuity, operational resilience, production stability, and phased legacy retirement or decommissioning activities.
• Monitor progress against outcomes, milestones, benefits, risks, technical readiness, business readiness, regulatory commitments, and stakeholder decisions, providing clear and timely executive reporting.
• Promote continuous improvement in modernization governance, delivery predictability, reporting quality, engineering discipline, collaboration, and sustainable adoption of modernized capabilities.

Skills

Cloud / hybrid migration

Stakeholder management

Job description

Ascent has recently been acquired by Acuity Analytics. This is both a significant milestone for us and a tremendous opportunity for you.

Acuity Analytics is a business with a strong global reputation, an impressive client base, and ambitious growth plans. We deliver deep insights and domain-led digital transformation to high-growth and heavily regulated organisations. To our customers, we bring a partnership that provides the talent, technology, and capability to enhance performance and operational efficiency.

As part of our continued growth, we are looking for a Senior Programme Manager to provide end-to-end leadership for an enterprise-grade legacy modernization programme within a Banking & Capital Markets environment.

About the Role

You will be responsible for driving modernization of business-critical legacy platforms, applications, data flows, integrations, operating processes, and supporting technology capabilities — while ensuring continuity of service, regulatory compliance, operational resilience, and measurable business outcomes.

The ideal candidate will bring strong experience leading large-scale legacy-to-modern transformation initiatives across complex enterprise environments, including mainframe or monolithic platform modernization, data migration, API-led integration, cloud or hybrid adoption, vendor and SI management, governance, risk management, change adoption, cutover, hyper-care, and transition to sustainable business-as-usual operations.

Skills and Experience Required

Core Skills (must-have)

• Cloud / hybrid migration and application modernization
• Stakeholdermanagement

Nice to Have

• Mainframe or monolithic platform modernization exposure
• Domain-Driven Design and Strangler Pattern migration governance.
• Banking / capital markets domain knowledge
• Target operating model, service transition and legacy decommissioning experience
• Strong programme management experience leading complex, enterprise-scale legacy modernization, platform transformation, data modernization, or technology simplification initiatives.
• Good understanding of legacy-to-modern delivery patterns, including mainframe or monolithic modernization, cloud or hybrid migration, data migration, API-led integration, application remediation, parallel run, cutover, and decommissioning.
• Excellent senior stakeholder management, executive communication, facilitation, negotiation, and relationship-building skills across business, technology, risk, compliance, operations, vendors, and implementation partners.
• Strong client expectation management skills, including the ability to manage senior client conversations, communicate trade-offs, handle ambiguity, resolve escalations, and maintain trust during complex modernization delivery.
• Strong governance, operating model, RAID, dependency, decision, escalation, financial, resource, vendor, and benefits management capabilities.
• Ability to manage programme-level scope, priorities, sequencing, modernization trade-offs, technical constraints, regulatory commitments, budgets, timelines, and executive reporting.
• Experience working with Agile, Waterfall, and Hybrid delivery models, including large-scale enterprise release planning, integrated testing, migration rehearsals, readiness reviews, and hyper-care governance.
• Ability to coordinate distributed, cross-functional teams across business, architecture, engineering, QA, DevOps, infrastructure, data, cyber security, operations, risk, compliance, support, and third-party delivery functions.
• Strong planning, prioritization, organizational, analytical, and problem-solving skills across competing stakeholder needs, unclear requirements, technical debt, and delivery constraints.
• Ability to convert complex modernization information into concise leadership updates, actionable insights, risk-based recommendations, and clear decision points.
• Strong focus on business outcomes, delivery discipline, accountability, adoption, service continuity, documentation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Comfortable operating in business-critical, high-availability environments where transparency, resilience, production stability, auditability, and stakeholder confidence are essential.
• Ability to proactively identify modernization risks, unblock dependencies, support change adoption, manage service transition, and enable sustainable business-as-usual operations after go-live.

What You Will Do

• Lead overall planning, governance, coordination, and execution of an enterprise legacy modernization programme across business, technology, data, infrastructure, risk, compliance, operations, and vendor workstreams.
• Define and maintain the integrated modernization roadmap, sequencing strategy, milestone plan, dependency map, decision log, RAID register, delivery calendar, and benefits tracking approach.
• Partner with architecture, engineering, data, security, infrastructure, and business teams to align modernization scope across rehost, replatform, refactor, re-architect, rebuild, replace, retain, data migration, integration, and decommissioning decisions.
• Establish and run programme governance forums, including steering updates, design authority reviews, architecture decision forums, delivery checkpoints, RAID reviews, readiness reviews, and escalation management.
• Coordinate modernization delivery across application remediation, data migration, cloud or hybrid platform enablement, integration redesign, API adoption, testing, performance validation, security controls, and operational readiness.
• Manage senior stakeholder communication, expectations, approvals, funding decisions, prioritisation trade-offs, and alignment across client leadership, internal leadership, delivery teams, vendors, and implementation partners.
• Own client expectation management by maintaining transparent communication, clarifying scope and priorities, aligning delivery commitments, managing escalations, and ensuring stakeholder confidence throughout modernization delivery.
• Track programme risks, issues, assumptions, dependencies, actions, architecture decisions, data risks, cutover risks, regulatory impacts, and operational constraints, ensuring timely mitigation and clear ownership.
• Drive programme-level financial, resource, scope, schedule, quality, benefits, capacity, vendor deliverable, and dependency tracking to support informed leadership decisions.
• Support target operating model documentation, role clarity, team mobilisation, onboarding, knowledge transfer, service transition, and business-as-usual handover planning.
• Ensure modernization execution follows agreed engineering, security, data governance, documentation, compliance, change control, release management, audit readiness, and quality standards.
• Facilitate cross-workstream planning, prioritisation, dependency resolution, integrated test planning, migration rehearsal governance, go-live readiness, cutover planning, rollback planning, and hyper-care coordination.
• Coordinate legacy platform coexistence, transition states, service continuity, operational resilience, production stability, and phased legacy retirement or decommissioning activities.
• Monitor progress against outcomes, milestones, benefits, risks, technical readiness, business readiness, regulatory commitments, and stakeholder decisions, providing clear and timely executive reporting.
• Promote continuous improvement in modernization governance, delivery predictability, reporting quality, engineering discipline, collaboration, and sustainable adoption of modernized capabilities.

Why Join Us

At Acuity Analytics, you'll have the opportunity to work across complex enterprise Azure environments while helping shape and improve our Managed Services capability.

You’ll solve challenging technical problems, influence standards and automation, mentor other engineers, and work closely with customers and technical teams.

People are at the Heart of our Business. By investing in people, we achieve exceptional results for our clients and create new opportunities for our teams to thrive.

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