* Day rate of £750 a day outside IR35
* Opportunity to work on a greenfield implementation
About Our Client
The organisation is a well-established player in the Financial Services industry, with a focus on delivering innovative technology solutions.
Job Description
Strategic Release Planning & Execution
* Own and manage the enterprise-wide release calendar, ensuring alignment with business priorities, regulatory deadlines, and change windows.
* Lead the planning and execution of major, minor, and emergency releases across multiple platforms and business units.
* Partner with Product Managers and Engineering Leads to plan, schedule, and coordinate major releases, patches, and hotfixes across multiple interconnected product teams.
* Require, review, and approve detailed Rollback Plans and communication strategies for every critical release, ensuring swift recovery in the event of failure.
* Lead regular coordination meetings with development, QA, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and business teams to ensure release readiness, resolve scheduling conflicts and pre-empt deployment risks.
* Oversee release bridges and provide leadership during out-of-hours deployments and critical cutovers.
* Manage and lead post live release periods, ensuring issues are captured, prioritised, communicated and plans for remediation are put into place.
Governance & Compliance
* Ensure all release activities comply with internal controls, audit requirements, and regulatory standards (e.g., SOX, PCI-DSS, GDPR, PRA/FCA).
* Maintain comprehensive release documentation, including approvals, risk assessments, rollback plans, and post-implementation reviews.
* Serve as a key point of contact for internal and external audits related to release governance.
* Enforce segregation of duties, change control policies, and traceability across the release lifecycle.
Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement
* Act as a central point of coordination for enterprise releases, engaging senior stakeholders, business sponsors, and technology leaders.
* Chair Release Governance Boards and contribute to Change Advisory Boards (CABs).
* Provide regular reporting on release performance, risks, and compliance metrics to executive leadership.
Continuous Improvement & Tooling
* Drive continuous improvement of release processes, automation, and tooling to support Agile, DevOps, and CI/CD practices.
* Evaluate and support the implementation of enterprise release management tools and frameworks.
* Foster a culture of accountability, quality, and operational excellence across delivery teams.
Miscellaneous
* Developing skills pertinent to role.
* Undertaking other reasonable tasks at the discretion of the Head of Section and Group.
The Successful Applicant
A successful Release Management Lead / VP should have:
* Extensive experience in release management, IT operations, or technology delivery, preferably in the banking or financial services sector.
* Proven experience managing enterprise-scale releases in a regulated financial services environment.
* Strong knowledge of ITIL, release governance, and change management frameworks.
* Experience with ITSM tools (e.g., ServiceNow), CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, Azure DevOps), and enterprise architecture platforms.
* Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
* Understanding of regulatory and compliance standards relevant to banking (e.g., DORA, SOX, PCI-DSS, GDPR).
* Experience with scaled agile frameworks (e.g., SAFe).
* Knowledge of risk management, audit controls, and change governance in regulated environments in the banking sector.
* Experience with core banking systems, digital banking platforms, or financial transaction processing.
What's on Offer
* Competitive daily rate of £778 a day inside IR35
* Temporary role offering flexibility and project-based engagement.
* Opportunity to work within a reputable organisation in the Financial Services industry.
* London-based role with exposure to innovative technology projects.
If you are ready to take the next step in your career as a Release Management Lead / VP, apply today to join a leading team in the Financial Services sector.
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