Digital Product Manager in Swindon

On behalf of UKRI, we are looking for a Digital Product Manager (Inside IR35) for a 6 month hybrid contract based up to 1 day per week in Swindon or Bristol as the business requires. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is the national funding agency investing in science and research in the UK.

Job Purpose

The role will work within the Digital and Funding Platforms team on delivery of a high priority change project. The role holder will support the project team, as Product Manager with their experience of product management processes including prioritisation and working with user centred design. The role will work within a multi-disciplinary digital delivery team, owning the backlog on behalf of the product owner. The project has tight delivery deadlines, and the product manager will need to highlight risks to deliverables and work with the product owner to prioritise and resource accordingly. The project has dependencies with other UKRI services so the role holder will need to work across a number of other functions, including architecture, policy and operations in order to manage these.

Key Responsibilities

• Product management; manage a prioritised backlog as part of the REF Systems product roadmap and plan prioritised work across teams, minimising dependencies and risks.
• Support multiple teams in delivering quality outcomes in the right way.
• Coach and mentor others in product management.
• Managing product outcomes: create effective methods for measuring product outcomes. You are an advocate for data-driven decision making. Use data to drive continuous improvement, increasing quality and user experience. Identify opportunities to share and connect product data.
• Agile and lean practices: compare and select the most appropriate delivery methods and processes; recognise, reflect and adapt when something does not work, encouraging experimentation. Use a blended approach depending on the context and help teams to measure, evaluate and visualise outcomes; encourage reflective practice to improve ways of working.
• User centred design insights: use user insights to represent users in internal discussions, advocate for research to be completed with all types of users of the service, use user needs to agree the work that needs to be done and determine priorities. Ensure service user personas are kept fresh and up to date with the latest service design.
• Ensuring value for money: advocate for user needs, ensuring user value is balanced against cost and value for the organisation; determine the benefits of delivering outcomes and write or contribute to business cases. You will communicate business-value propositions and help others make value-based decisions, influencing the direction of development.
• Stakeholder management: work with the team and Funding Services to develop and maintain an understanding of stakeholders and implement appropriate communications strategies. Identify and resolve issues, influence stakeholders and manage relationships effectively. Invest in building long-term strategic relationships and communicate clearly and regularly with stakeholders including Council Funding leads to understand how TFS can be iterated to meet desired outcomes.
• Strategic problem solving: Define, own and solve problems regarding service design and functionality such that the service can deliver outcomes rather than features. Actively share your knowledge and experience of development methodology, leadership and delivery to develop others and work within the 'product' community of practice.

This is an outline description of the key responsibilities and accountabilities involved in the job. You might be expected to undertake any other duties across the wider CIO Group function, commensurate with the level of responsibility of this post, for which you have the necessary experience and/or training.

Essential skills and experience

• Product management or subject matter expertise in digital platforms.
• Professional qualifications in agile delivery, product management, or relevant technical disciplines.
• Experience working in government departments, or large public sector organisations.
• Working with user centred design teams to solve business problems.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident

As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, UKRI guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following: this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different.