Principal Consultant – Transformation in Edinburgh

Job type: Permanent, full-time (with flexible working options available)

Job location: Edinburgh (Hybrid)

Direct reports: None

We are seeking a Principal Consultant with significant Financial Services experience to lead the design and delivery of complex technology- and AI-enabled client engagements focused on improving processes and customer experiences. This is not about incremental improvement or building faster horses – it’s about helping our clients engage with the art of the possible, guiding them through the policy, process, business, and technology changes needed to realise genuine commercial impact.

This is a senior, client-facing role suited to someone with 8+ years’ experience in consulting or impact-led transformation. You must be comfortable operating with senior stakeholders, shaping solutions, and taking accountability for both delivery and commercial outcomes.

As Principal Consultant, you will play a key role in bridging user and business needs with implementable technology capabilities (including data, automation, and AI), coordinating delivery across internal teams – including human-centred designers – and multiple external technology partners. The role combines advisory, delivery leadership, and commercial responsibility.

This role is based in our Edinburgh office, with an expectation of regular in-office presence to support collaboration with colleagues and clients.

• Client & Stakeholder Management

• Build and maintain trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders (Director / VP / C-suite level).
• Act as primary point of contact for clients, owning day-to-day engagement management and senior-level escalations.
• Lead workshops and stakeholder discussions to understand client challenges, strategic objectives, and regulatory constraints.
• Help clients see beyond current-state limitations to engage with what’s genuinely possible with available technology.
• Provide clear, confident advice and challenge clients constructively to achieve better outcomes.
• Lead the definition and design of the business target-state that reimagines how work gets done – not just optimise existing processes.
• Help clients understand the art of the possible, translating existing and emerging technology capabilities into practical opportunities for their business.
• Work closely with human-centred designers and client subject matter experts to fundamentally rethink customer and colleague experiences.
• Navigate and shape end-to-end change across policy, process, organisation, and technology.
• Build compelling business cases that articulate genuine commercial impact, including (but not limited to) efficiency savings.
• Develop target operating models, roadmaps, and delivery plans that connect vision to value realisation.

• Plan, manage, and oversee end-to-end delivery, ensuring scope, time, cost, quality, and risk objectives are met.
• Coordinate and integrate the work of multiple technology vendors alongside internal design and delivery teams.
• Guide clients through the interconnected policy, process, and technology changes required to realise benefits.
• Take accountability for delivery outcomes across multiple workstreams and delivery teams.
• Establish and maintain effective delivery governance, reporting, and controls.
• Proactively identify delivery risks and issues, driving mitigation and resolution.
• Lead technology- and AI-enabled delivery teams, ensuring solutions are implemented responsibly and effectively whilst prioritising business outcomes.
• Take commercial accountability for client engagements, including budget ownership, forecasting, and margin management.
• Develop and manage engagement financial plans, ensuring delivery remains within agreed commercial parameters.
• Monitor financial performance throughout the engagement lifecycle and proactively manage risks to revenue, cost, and margin.
• Work closely with finance and leadership teams to provide accurate financial reporting and forward-looking forecasts.
• Manage contract scope, change control, and commercial discussions with clients and delivery partners.
• Lead, mentor, and manage teams of consultants, including both permanent staff and contractors.
• Set clear objectives, expectations, and delivery standards for team members.
• Support the development, coaching, and performance management of junior consultants.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive, and high-performance team culture.
• Manage and coordinate multiple third-party technology vendors across concurrent workstreams.
• Ensure effective collaboration between internal human-centred design teams and external technology partners.
• Hold partners accountable for delivery commitments, outcomes, and quality standards.
• Manage commercial and delivery relationships to ensure successful project outcomes.

• Support and, where appropriate, lead proposal development, bids, and responses to client opportunities.
• Identify and shape opportunities for follow-on work and account growth within existing clients.
• Work with account leads and leadership to develop account strategies and long‐term growth plans.
• Contribute to compelling value propositions, solution approaches, and pricing models.
• Build and maintain strong internal and external networks to support business development.
• Apply deep knowledge of Financial Services domains (e.g. banking, insurance, wealth, capital markets, payments, or regulatory change).
• Understand FS regulatory environments, risk, compliance, and governance requirements.
• Use industry knowledge to provide informed, pragmatic advice and shape credible delivery approaches.

• Required experience & skills

• 8+ years’ professional experience in consulting, advisory, or technology‐enabled organisations.
• Prior consulting experience, ideally within a Big 4 consultancy.
• Significant experience delivering projects within the Financial Services sector.
• Proven ability to help clients think beyond incremental improvement to genuine transformation.
• Experience designing and delivering systemic solutions that span policy, process, organisational, and technology change.
• Demonstrated ability to coordinate multiple technology vendors and integrate their work with internal delivery teams.
• Strong experience planning and managing project delivery across multi-disciplinary teams, including human-centred designers.
• Proven experience managing senior stakeholders and executive‐level clients.
• Experience leading and managing teams of consultants, including contractors.
• Strong commercial acumen, including budget ownership, forecasting, and margin management.
• Solid understanding of modern technology, data, automation, and AI as enablers of fundamental business change.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and presentation skills.
• Experience delivering large‐scale transformation, digital, or regulatory programmes in Financial Services or with Private Equity.
• Exposure to agile, waterfall, or hybrid delivery methodologies.
• Experience working on AI, data, cloud, or automation‐led initiatives.
• Experience contributing to sales, proposals, or account growth activities.

• Edinburgh‐based with flexible working
• Office on Edinburgh's prettiest and most‐Instagrammed street
• Company pension scheme
• Death in service cover
• Private medical insurance
• Electric Vehicle scheme
• Annual Team Trip
• Loads of lovely snacks (both healthy and indulgent) when you’re in the office

Be sure to tell us a little about yourself, why you want to work at Nile, and the type of challenges you’re passionate about. Like a cover letter, but a little less formal. We promise to get back to you. (P.S. No recruiters, please.)

We encourage applications from a variety of backgrounds, ethnicities, religions, ages, gender identities, sexual orientations and all abilities. Nile cares deeply about building a better business that supports equality and diversity; not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes us stronger.

A quick note on eligibility: we aren’t able to provide visa sponsorship for this role, so you’ll need to have the right to work in the UK to apply.