Strategic Planning & Governance Manager

Aegon UK; City of Edinburgh; Hybrid; GBP 57,000 - 87,000; Full time

Job summary

A financial services company in Edinburgh seeks a Strategic Planning & Governance Manager. This high-impact role involves leading planning cycles, designing governance frameworks, and ensuring alignment with strategic priorities. Candidates should have a strong background in business transformation and Agile delivery, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders. Competitive salary from £57,600 to £86,400, hybrid working model.

Benefits

Enhanced pension contributions

Discretionary bonus

Annual car allowance

38 days leave per year

Qualifications

• Strong background in business transformation and driving strategic change.
• Proven record in Agile delivery and risk assurance.
• Expertise in governance frameworks and regulatory requirements.

Responsibilities

• Lead quarterly planning cycles across Agile and Waterfall teams.
• Design governance frameworks that promote accountability.
• Build integrated delivery models for informed decision-making.

Skills

Business transformation

Agile delivery

Strategic planning

Risk assurance

Stakeholder engagement

Governance frameworks

Data driven analysis

RAID management

Job description

Overview

Job Description Summary

Strategic Planning & Governance Manager (Permanent)

Location: Edinburgh (We believe in the power of in-person collaboration, and our hybrid model requires colleagues to be in the office a minimum of 40% of their time)

Salary: A competitive salary from £57,600 – £86,400 depending on the experience you can bring

Closing date: Friday 26th September 2025

We help people live their best lives. We help them with the big stuff, for the moments that matter: Pensions, Savings, Investments. At Aegon, we strive in creating a diverse organisation that plays a meaningful role in driving greater equity, inclusion and belonging.

We’re building a next-generation Value Management Office (VMO) – a flexible model that blends agile and traditional portfolio management to suit our organisation’s evolving needs.

Sitting within the Transformation department, the VMO connects strategy with execution, enabling smarter decisions through effective governance, transparent reporting, and efficient resource use.

It champions a value-driven culture, ensuring every initiative is prioritised, funded, and delivered to drive growth, efficiency, and agility.

With standardised processes, smart technology, and strong collaboration, our VMO is built to respond fast to change – while staying aligned with long-term goals.

As we shape the future of our Value Management Office, we have an exciting opportunity for a Strategic Planning & Governance Manager to play a central role in how we plan, govern, and deliver change across the organisation.

This is a high-impact role that ensures alignment between strategic priorities and execution, manages risk effectively, and fosters collaboration across teams to unlock value faster.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead quarterly planning cycles across Agile and Waterfall teams, aligning initiatives with strategy, budgets, and delivery capacity.
• Design and evolve governance frameworks that promote transparency, accountability, and continuous portfolio optimisation.
• Build integrated delivery models that support multi-modal execution and enable informed decision-making.
• Own and maintain a structured RAID framework to proactively manage risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies across the portfolio.
• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration to remove delivery bottlenecks, prioritise high-impact work, and embed risk-aware planning practices.
• Work closely with governance teams and VMO leadership to embed risk management into portfolio decision-making.
• Collaborate with 2nd and 3rd line risk functions to ensure robust governance and compliance.
• Continuously assess and improve governance and delivery frameworks – identifying opportunities to simplify, automate, and enhance agility.
• Mitigate downstream impacts by proactively identifying risks, dependencies, and delivery challenges – ensuring decisions made at the portfolio level are fully informed and future-proofed.

What we’re looking for

• A strong background in business transformation, with experience driving strategic change across complex organisations.
• A proven track record in Agile delivery, strategic planning, and risk assurance.
• A strong grasp of multi-modal delivery approaches – including Agile, Waterfall, and SAFe.
• Expertise in RAID management and mitigating risks at the portfolio level.
• The ability to influence and engage senior stakeholders across the business.
• Knowledge of regulatory requirements and how they shape transformation initiatives.
• Experience designing and executing governance frameworks that drive clarity and control.
• Data driven approach to commercial analysis enabling rapid identification of opportunities to drive deeper value realisation through efficiency and effectiveness.
• A solid foundation in managing initiatives across transformation and change – including tracking and reporting on budget/ROI, time & quality, proactively surfacing risks and issues; and ensuring clear governance and configuration management across delivery.
• The ability to challenge and partner with the business, influencing senior stakeholders and shaping strategic conversations.

What’s in it for you?

• We’re enhancing our pension from November 2025. If you put in 7% of your salary, we’ll top it up by a further 13%.
• A discretionary bonus, depending on personal and company performance.
• Annual car allowance.
• 38 days leave per year (including bank holidays, pro-rated for part-time).

We also offer private medical cover, life assurance, critical illness cover, enhanced parental leave and a variety of lifestyle benefits to help our employees live their best lives, including retail discount vouchers, cycle2work scheme, subsidised restaurant and online GP appointments. To find out more about what to expect at Aegon click here.

This is a unique opportunity to help shape a newly formed strategic function at the heart of our transformation journey. You’ll be empowered to influence how we deliver change, manage risk, and create long-term value while working in a collaborative, forward thinking environment.

The legal bits

We’ll need you to confirm you have the right to work in the UK. If we offer you a job and you accept, there are some checks we need to complete before you can start with us. This will include a credit and criminal record check, as well as providing satisfactory references.

Equal Opportunity Employer

We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their age, disability, race, religion/belief, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity.