Technical Programme Manager

Fractional Talent; North East; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Holiday entitlement

Pension contribution

Share options

Sick pay

Remote working

Training & development

Probation period

Job summary

Neuron Innovations in the UK is seeking a Technical Programme Manager to lead diverse counter-drone and surveillance programmes. You will masterfully coordinate partners, manage requirements, and drive live trials while contributing hands-on engineering work.

This role offers ownership from week one, with share options and a hybrid UK-based schedule including site visits and trials at regional airports and defence facilities.

Qualifications

• Engineering degree or equivalent; hands-on delivery background.
• Led multiple funded or customer projects with budgets and milestones.
• Produced technical documents (requirements, test plans, reports) accepted by funders/regulators.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate programmes with partners: UAS operators, airports, sensor manufacturers, defence users, CAA and ESA; manage plans, milestones, risks and change control.
• Perform hands-on technical work: write/ review requirements, interface docs, test plans and evaluation reports; secure acceptance by funders.
• Translate programme requirements into engineering priorities and acceptance criteria with engineering leads; identify reusable capabilities across projects.

Skills

Engineering degree

Project management

Live deployment

Team leadership

UK driving licence

SC clearance eligibility

Education

Engineering degree or equivalent

Job description

Technical Programme Manager

Neuron Innovations

• Reporting to: CEO (eventually Head of Engineering)
• Location: UK, hybrid, with regular travel to sites in Cornwall, West Wales, Kent and Northumberland
• Package: £80,000 - £90,000 plus share options

Why Neuron

Neuron is building the machine internet. Sensors, drones, robots and software are becoming autonomous, but they can't yet find, trust or work with each other across organisations. Neuron is the coordination layer that changes that: the DNS and routing for agentic physical systems.

Each organisation runs its own Neuron console and registers its systems as agents with a verifiable identity. Other organisations can then discover those agents, trust them and work with them through shared protocols, across organisational and national boundaries, without anyone giving up control of their systems or data. Everything on the network is ready to work with AI agents.

It is already live and paid for. There are 470+ agents on our network, and we have won £4.3M in grants and sales since 2019, £1.7M of it since June 2026, from the UK CAA, Innovate UK and the European Space Agency. We are also part of NATO's multinational test and evaluation for counter-drone systems.

We started in lower airspace, where we know the domain best:

• 4DSKY, our community sensor network for aircraft tracking, with hundreds of active receivers across the UK and Europe.
• Funded programmes with the CAA, Innovate UK and the European Space Agency: federated surveillance for airspace modernisation, ground-based detect-and-avoid for drones, counter-drone sensing at a regional airport, and distributed acoustic drone detection.
• Deployments of airspace surveillance networks for defence and UAS operators.

Neuron is expanding rapidly. We are a team of 7 in London today, growing across product, engineering and delivery, and we are hiring exceptional people who want to build the infrastructure autonomous systems will run on. You would join early, with real ownership from your first week, share options in what you build, and work that goes straight into live operations at airports, along coastlines and in defence exercises.

The role

You will make sure the programmes that put Neuron into real airspace and defence operations are delivered correctly and on time: counter-drone (counter-UAS) systems at a regional airport, ground-based detect-and-avoid for drones, an assured surveillance coordination service for the CAA, distributed acoustic drone detection for the European Space Agency, and deployments for defence and UAS operators. Each one connects sensors, C2 systems and AI agents across organisations, and each one has to work in the field. This is a hands‑on role for an engineer who has moved into delivery. We are a small team, so you run the programmes and also do real technical work: you write and review requirements, test plans and reports, run the technical reviews, get into the detail with our engineers and partners, and are on site for trials. Our Systems and Assurance Engineer leads requirements and assurance, and our Product Engineer leads the product. You own delivery, so customers, partners and the team come to you first.

What you’ll do

• Run every programme with its partners (UAS operators, an airport, a sensor manufacturer, defence users, the CAA and ESA): plans, milestones, risks, dependencies, monthly boards and change control.
• Do hands‑on technical work on the programmes: write and review requirements, interface documents, test plans and evaluation reports with our engineers, and own their acceptance by funders.
• Turn programme requirements into engineering priorities and acceptance criteria with our engineering leads, and spot where one shared capability can serve several projects instead of bespoke forks.
• Plan and run trials and installations with our partners and our installation contractor: drone flight validation in West Wales (May to July 2027) and a live counter‑drone trial at a regional airport (July to September 2027). Be on site when they happen.
• Be the first contact on delivery for partners and the funders' monitoring officers, and lead our Systems and Assurance Engineer.
• Keep the ESA contract's review gates and our defence and customer deployments on track, including NATO counter‑drone test and evaluation.
• Use AI tools and agents to run delivery well: automate the tracking, reporting and documentation that would otherwise need a PMO.

Grant claims and financial reporting stay with our finance lead. You own what those claims are made against.

What you’ll bring

• An engineering degree or an engineering start (systems, integration, test or technical lead) before moving into running technical projects.
• Several funded or customer projects run at once, with budgets and milestones you owned yourself.
• Technical documents you wrote yourself, such as requirements, test plans or reports, that a customer, funder or regulator accepted.
• Something you delivered into a live operational environment, such as a sensor network, an integrated system or a trials campaign.
• Leading a small team of specialists.
• Comfort working in a small team with no PMO behind you: you do the work, not just coordinate it.
• UK‑based, with a driving licence and eligibility for SC clearance.

Nice to have

Counter UAS (CUAS) or defence programmes; UAS and BVLOS operations; airspace surveillance, radar or electronic conspicuity; AI or autonomous systems; sensor integration; flight test; safety cases (CAP 3015, SORA); delivery into Innovate UK or ESA programmes.

What we offer

• Holiday: 25 days plus UK public holidays; one extra day for each year of service, up to five; your birthday off
• Pension: Neuron pays 3% of your full basic salary
• Share options: EMI options, vesting over four years with a one‑year cliff
• Sick pay: Up to 10 days at full pay a year once probation is complete
• Working pattern: Remote until our London office opens, then one to three days a week there; flexible hours around a 10:00–16:00 UTC core
• Development: Support for training and professional development
• Probation: Six months

Contractors are paid a day rate and do not receive the employee benefits. Work for defence customers needs SC clearance, so this role needs eligibility for it.