At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead delivery operations, ensuring quality and project execution across the agency.
- Company: Join a dynamic agency focused on innovative delivery solutions.
- Benefits: Hybrid work model, competitive salary, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Collaborative environment with a focus on AI-enabled delivery systems.
- Why this job: Be at the forefront of operational excellence and client satisfaction in a growing agency.
- Qualifications: Proven leadership in project management and strong commercial acumen required.
Join us as Delivery Director, accountable for the delivery operating environment, quality and project execution health of manifesto. Location: Hybrid - 2 days a week in London or Bristol office.
About the role:
- Job level: 13
- Working style: Hybrid, the successful candidate will be expected to attend an office on average twice a week based on client demand in London or Bristol.
The Delivery Director is accountable for the delivery operating environment, quality and project execution health of manifesto. This is a senior leadership role created as manifesto grows in scale and complexity, requiring a senior leader responsible for delivery performance, operational consistency and client outcomes across the entire agency portfolio.
The role sits at the centre of the agency delivery system, connecting Commercial, Growth, Strategy, Technology, Design and Delivery into a coherent execution model. The Delivery Director is accountable for the environment through which work moves from sale into execution and into outcomes, ensuring programmes, projects, CI and support are properly governed, commercially controlled and delivered in a way that sustains client confidence and long-term relationships.
The role spans significant portfolio breadth, delivery governance and mobilisation, capacity and project workforce alignment, commercial performance against forecast/budget, revenue recognition, risk containment and escalation management. It requires real-time visibility across the health of the agency's entire delivery portfolio and the authority, judgement and presence to act decisively when performance is under pressure. This role carries accountability for outcomes, not oversight of activity.
The Delivery Director is not a layer of governance above delivery. They are the operational leader who removes friction, resolves ambiguity, holds standards and ensures the agency can deliver with consistency and pace at the scale the business demands now and the greater scale it is moving towards. Empowering and working with the senior leaders within the Project Management capability to deliver maximum impact for their portfolios, clients and team.
The Delivery Director provides leadership and intervention where delivery performance, client confidence and commercial outcomes require improvement. Manifesto is evolving towards a more integrated, strategically-led and operationally mature AI enabled agency model. As scale increases, so do the tensions inherent in that growth: increasing delivery and commercial complexity, higher coordination overhead across multidisciplinary teams, pressure on margin and forecasting confidence, evolving client expectations and the growing importance of scalable delivery systems.
The Delivery Director exists to create delivery transparency and consistency in delivery across this environment. The role works in close partnership with the MD on maintaining delivery performance; Strategy Enablement and Partnerships Director, Strategy team, Head of PMO and Programme Leads on shaping viable, deliverable programmes; the Finance and Commercial Director on delivery execution within commercial frameworks; Technology and Design leadership on quality and capability maturity; and Growth and client services leadership on sales-to-delivery mobilisation, estimation and feasibility.
The Delivery Director also works closely with the Engineering Director, who holds delegated ownership for engineering leadership, capability, technical standards and team management. The effectiveness of this role depends on the quality of these relationships and the clarity of accountability boundaries between growth, client leadership, operational execution and commercial governance.
Responsibilities:
- The Delivery Director owns delivery as a business capability.
- The role is accountable for orchestrating the flow of work through the business from point of sale, with full ownership of the following:
- Delivery execution, governance and operational health across portfolios
- Sales-to-delivery mobilisation and delivery lifecycle management
- Delivery execution against agreed commercial budgets and operational plans
- Effective deployment of delivery capability against client requirement including management of near shore agreements
- Project and programme profitability/performance against agreed commercial parameters
- Supporting accurate forecasting and revenue reporting through on time and on budget delivery performance
- Client satisfaction and long-term retention through delivery excellence
- Risk containment, escalation management and delivery recovery
- Leadership, coaching and support for the project and programme management leaders and team
- Delivery standards, maturity and continuous improvement ensuring AI, automations and process improvements are implemented effectively
Commercial accountability:
The Delivery Director carries direct commercial accountability for project and programme delivery performance. The role owns revenue performance and recognition against budget and forecast, and is accountable for ensuring projects and programmes can be and are delivered in a commercially sustainable way with senior project and programme management leaders that aligns with agreed margin assumptions. This encompasses project and programme profitability, delivery margin management, scope containment, operational forecasting accuracy and the early surfacing of margin leakage, delivery risk and forecasting issues.
The Delivery Director works in close partnership with the Finance and Commercial Director, who owns financial reporting integrity, pricing governance, systems architecture, commercial MI, margin analysis frameworks and forecasting governance. The Finance and Commercial Director governs the commercial operating framework; the Delivery Director is accountable for operational execution and performance within it. This distinction is deliberate and essential to maintaining clear ownership boundaries while enabling close operational collaboration.
Delivery performance and client confidence:
The Delivery Director is accountable for client confidence across delivery, not simply project completion. The operational environment must consistently produce work that clients trust, value and want to continue investing in.
- Delivery quality is consistent and reliable across all programmes
- Communication is proactive and transparent at every stage
- Risks are surfaced early and managed with rigour
- The delivery experience reflects the strategic ambition of the work
- Teams operate with clear accountability and ownership
- Projects convert into long-term relationships, retained revenue and reputation growth
Delivery quality directly drives client retention.
Delivery Director in London employer: manifesto
At Manifesto, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer that fosters a collaborative and innovative work culture. Our hybrid working model allows for flexibility while providing ample opportunities for professional growth and development within the dynamic sectors we serve, including charity and healthcare. Join us to make a meaningful impact through your work, supported by a team that values creativity and dedication.
