Release Manager – Delivery Centre

Would you like to be part of a growing delivery capability in a people‑centric organisation? Or perhaps work in an open and collaborative learning environment? Are you passionate about delivering change safely and predictably into live, high‑assurance environments? We have got all this and more. Whatever your aspirations, we're looking for release managers to be part of an exceptional Delivery Centre capability, providing dedicated delivery and release governance capacity for our clients.

The Release Manager is responsible for coordinating and governing the end‑to‑end release lifecycle across one or more Public Sector client engagements within the Delivery Centre. The role ensures that releases are delivered in a secure, compliant, and low‑risk manner, aligned to client governance, service stability, and regulatory requirements. Operating in a multi‑team, high‑assurance environment, the Release Manager acts as the critical bridge between engineering teams, service management, and client stakeholders to enable predictable, audit‑ready delivery of change.

The central hub for this position is in Newcastle, but we welcome applicants from across the North‑East. We operate a hybrid working policy with an expectation of 60% in office time. We value collaboration and client impact, so our hybrid model is designed to strike a balance between flexibility, in‑person connection, and delivering exceptional outcomes for our clients.

Please note: Due to the nature of this role and specific client engagement, any offer of employment will be subject to satisfactory BPSS and SC security clearance. To meet the client’s eligibility requirements, applicants must have been resident in the UK for the last five years and must not have spent more than six consecutive months outside the UK during that period.

• Own and manage the end‑to‑end release lifecycle across development, test, and production environments
• Plan and maintain a centralised release calendar across multiple work streams and client services
• Coordinate Go‑Live activities, including deployment plans, runbooks, and back‑out strategies
• Facilitate cross‑team alignment between engineering, QA, Dev Ops, Service Management, and client teams
• Lead release readiness reviews, change approvals (e.g. CAB), and go/no‑go decisions
• Ensure adherence to Public Sector governance, including change management, audit, and compliance standards (e.g. ITIL, ISO, security policies)
• Identify and manage risks, dependencies, and impacts across integrated systems
• Produce and maintain release documentation, reporting, and audit artefacts
• Support live service stability, including incident coordination during releases and post‑release monitoring
• Drive continuous improvement of release processes, including automation and standardisation across the Delivery Centre

• Strong understanding of SDLC, Dev Ops, and CI/CD pipelines
• Proven experience managing complex releases across multiple teams or suppliers
• Experience working within regulated or Public Sector environments (e.g. HMRC, DWP, central government)
• Knowledge of service management frameworks (ITIL, Change Management, CAB processes)
• Familiarity with security and compliance requirements (e.g. BPSS/SC environments, audit controls)
• Experience with tooling such as Jira, Azure Dev Ops, Service Now
• Strong stakeholder management with the ability to engage senior client stakeholders and delivery leadership
• Experience leading complex, multi‑team release areas or service lines with strategic oversight and minimal direction
• Proven ability to oversee large or multiple delivery teams, providing escalation management and direction across engagements
• The ability to anticipate systemic release risks across multiple delivery areas, taking strategic ownership of mitigation and resolution
• Experience driving innovation, automation, and process improvement, and building capability across teams
• You will be required to hold active SC clearance for this role.
• Relevant certifications (e.g. ITIL, SAFe, PRINCE2, or release/change management qualifications).
• Experience with release automation and CI/CD tooling (e.g. Git Hub Actions, Jenkins, Azure Dev Ops…