Programme Manager

At Close Brothers we recruit individuals from diverse backgrounds and encourage you to apply even if you don’t tick every box. We celebrate diversity, promote inclusivity and are open to discuss flexible work options to help you balance work and home life. Vacancies are available on a part-time, job-share or full-time basis because the best person for the job isn’t always available full-time. Our aim is to facilitate requests wherever possible and managers will consider requests on an individual basis.

Join the Close Brothers Technology Team where we are seeking an exceptional Programme Manager to lead the delivery of complex, high-impact technology change initiatives. This is a hands-on role for someone who thrives on driving value through delivery, shaping culture, and building high-performing teams in a fast-paced, regulated environment.

Responsibilities

• End-to-End Programme Leadership: Define, plan, and deliver large-scale application-centric programmes from initiation through to business adoption, ensuring delivery on time, within budget, and to scope.
• Stakeholder & Third Party Management: Engage and manage senior stakeholders through the change lifecycle; build and manage strong relationships with third-party vendors, ensuring alignment and delivery at all levels; engage, challenge, and influence senior stakeholders, including executive sponsors, to maintain focus on value and outcomes; establish and maintain effective governance to keep delivery on track and aligned to business priorities.
• Technical Delivery Expertise: Deep understanding of the SDLC; able to optimise software engineering delivery, identify dependencies between technical stories, and manage handoffs between analysts and developers; experience with both Agile and Waterfall, with a strong focus on Agile delivery; ability to visualise microservices solutions, anticipate integration challenges, and ask the tough questions to ensure robust design; knowledge of cloud hosting and containerisation, with a focus on maximising value from modern infrastructure.
• Scope & Prioritisation: Expert in scope management, able to define hard and soft boundaries, and implement effective prioritisation frameworks and transition strategies.
• Team Leadership: Build, coach, and inspire high-performing teams. Foster a culture of continuous improvement and accountability. Ensure that all Governance and Compliance requirements are adhered to and all reporting and reviewing activities required by the Regulatory Bodies are carried out to the standards required.

Qualifications

• Proven experience delivering complex core system programmes in financial services.
• Mastery of project management lifecycles, with the ability to tailor delivery styles to the needs of each project.
• Strong technical acumen across SDLC, microservices, cloud/containerisation, and integration patterns.
• Deep practical knowledge of Agile delivery, with the ability to drive value and foster the right culture—not just follow the ceremonies.
• Outstanding stakeholder management and communication skills, with experience engaging at all levels up to executive.
• Demonstrated ability to manage third-party relationships and deliver through others.
• Instinctive anticipation of delivery, third party, commercial and cutover risks, and the ability to shape pragmatic migrations to keep the business safe.

Nice to have

• Active experience leading a number of significant business and/or technical programme deliveries in financial services or other similar regulated environments.
• Experience of both traditional and agile methods.

We are an inclusive organisation and committed to ensuring our recruitment process is as accessible as possible to everyone. We will make adjustments for people who have a disability or long-term condition. If you need the job description or application form in an alternative format or would like to discuss the recruitment process with us, please email recruit.ssc@closebrothers.com or request a call back.