Senior Delivery Manager - Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - G7
National: £56,375 - £62,830 London: £62,000 - £69,105, plus industry leading pension and benefits.
Full-time (Permanent) National: £56,375 - £62,830 London: £62,000 - £69,105, plus industry leading pension and benefits. Published on 25 March 2026 Deadline 7 April 2026
Location
Our main Defra DDTS hubs are in York, Warrington, Newcastle, Reading and Bristol, however the successful candidate may be contractually based at any Defra office. Please be aware that space within the London office is restricted and it may not be possible to be based in this location.
About the job
Job summary
Defra is the UK government department responsible for safeguarding our natural environment, supporting our world‑leading food and farming industry, and sustaining a thriving rural economy. Our broad remit means we play a major role in people's day‑to‑day life, from the food we eat, and the air we breathe, to the water we drink.
Digital, Data, Technology and Security (DDTS) is the trusted team for digital across the entire Defra Group.
We have around 1000 colleagues across DDTS and our ambition is to make it easier and faster than ever for people to interact with Defra. If you are ready to drive innovation and push boundaries, we want to hear from you. Join us and together we will create a great place for living, and a green and healthy future for all.
A Senior Delivery Manager is accountable for the effective delivery of complex, high risk products and services. Within Defra, you could be helping to protect homes and businesses from flooding, make our air and rivers cleaner, protect animals and the environment, support farmers, and ensure food security.
Person specification
Responsibilities
* Build and maintain teams, ensuring they are motivated, collaborating and working well
* Identify obstacles and help the team to overcome them
* Focus the team on what is most important to the delivery of products and services
* Encourage and facilitate continuous improvement of the delivery team
* Coach and mentor both team members and others to apply the most appropriate Agile and Lean tools and techniques
* Have strong communication skills and engage senior stakeholders
* Agile and Lean practices: You can coach and lead teams in Agile and Lean good practices. You know how to create and tailor the right approach for a team, challenging, evaluating and iterating the approach through the life cycle. You can experiment with new and innovative ways of working to improve delivery across the organisation. You act as a recognised expert and advocate for Agile and Lean approaches
* Commercial management: You can take responsibility for complex relationships with contracted suppliers. You know how to identify appropriate contractual frameworks and appropriate suppliers, and how to ensure good value through negotiation
* Communication skills: You can mediate between people and mend relationships, communicating with stakeholders at all levels. You can manage stakeholder expectations and facilitate discussions about high risk and complexity even within constrained timescales. You can speak on behalf of, and represent the community to, large audiences inside and outside of government
* Financial management: You know how to influence or create budgets that are complex. You can manage the budget you are given and make it work
* Life-cycle perspective: You know how to work and consult with the right people at the right time to move through the product life cycle and deliver value. You can use evidence to decide when a team should continue, change direction or stop. You can identify tools and techniques required at different phases, and know how to guide colleagues and stakeholders through the entire life cycle.
* Maintaining delivery momentum: You know how to optimise the delivery flow of teams. You actively address the most complicated risks, issues and dependencies including where ownership exists outside the team, or no clear ownership exists. You can identify innovative ways to unblock issues.
* Making a process work: You can identify and challenge organisational processes that are unnecessarily complicated. You add value and can coach the organisation to inspect and adapt processes. You can guide teams through the implementation of a new process.
* Planning: You know how to lead a continual planning process in a very complex environment. You can identify dependencies in plans across services and co-ordinate delivery, and plan beyond delivery. You are able to coach other teams as the central point of expertise.
* Team dynamics and collaboration: You choose the right type of feedback at the appropriate time and ensure the discussion and decision stick. You can identify problems or issues in the team dynamic and rectify them.
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