Senior Product Manager - Day Rate Contract

Location: London, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Edinburgh, Belfast, gb, Remote

Company Description

Version 1 has celebrated 30 years in business and continues to be trusted by global brands to deliver technology and transformation solutions that drive customer success. Our deep expertise enables our customers to navigate the rapidly evolving technology landscape. We foster strong partnerships with global technology leaders including Microsoft, AWS, Oracle, Red Hat, OutSystems, Snowflake, ensuring that our customers are provided with the highest quality solutions and services.

 We’re an award-winning employer reflecting how our employees are at the very heart of what we do:

• UK & Irelands premier AWS, Microsoft & Oracle partner
• 3300+ strong, €350/£300m revenue business
• 10+ years as a Great Place to Work in Ireland & UK
• Best Workplace for Women in the UK & Ireland by GPTW
• Best Workplace for Wellbeing in the UK by GPTW

We’re a core values driven company, we hire people who share our values, and we reward those who display and foster them, it’s deeply embedded within our DNA. Invest in us and we’ll invest in you!. 

Job Description

At Version 1, we are solving complex, meaningful problems that deliver real impact.

Working with leading public and private sector organisations across the UK and Ireland, we deliver important, real-world outcomes. For example, we help ensure prisoners are released at the right time, and reduce the cost of recruiting teachers for schools.

Our Product Managers sit at the heart of these transformations — operating at the most senior levels of our client organisations, shaping strategy, and making sure that large, complex programmes stay pointed in the right direction.

• Define and hold the vision — set a clear direction at programme level, reinforce it consistently across teams, stakeholders, and suppliers, and protect it from the entropy that affects every large programme.
• Own the organisational roadmap — plan, prioritise, and communicate across many teams simultaneously, surface and resolve cross-organisational dependencies, and make the hard calls about sequencing when everything feels urgent.
• Frame problems before solutions — continuously discover, ask the right questions, and ensure the programme is solving the right problem at the right level.
• Champion the user — bring real user insight into every conversation and every decision, ensuring it shapes priorities and trade-offs even when operating at pace and scale.
• Govern suppliers and partners — influence organisations you dont control, hold them to shared goals, and resolve tensions constructively.
• Navigate with diplomacy — handle difficult conversations across civil servant teams, operational stakeholders, and other suppliers with tact. This environment involves competing priorities and strong opinions; you know how to challenge and hold a position without damaging the relationships that matter.
• Collaborate openly — work across disciplines — design, engineering, data, policy — as true problem-solving partners.
• Facilitate with purpose — run workshops and meetings that lead to clear decisions and shared understanding.
• Shape and secure incoming work — stay close to budget-holders needs: spotting high-value opportunities, crafting compelling propositions, and shaping the team needed to win and deliver great work.
• Drive progress — take ownership and ensure the team gets over the line.
• Deliver with integrity — do the right thing, including having difficult conversations when needed, so we can proudly stand behind our work.

Qualifications

You lead high-performing teams, solve the right problems to drive outcomes, and bring clarity and alignment through storytelling.

You lead with curiosity and empathy, asking the right questions that get to the heart of a problem. You create environments where diverse perspectives are heard and the best ideas can emerge, wherever they come from.

You make decisions and set direction. You balance user needs, business priorities, and technical constraints to make clear, timely calls - particularly in uncertainty. You focus effort where it will have the greatest impact and bring others with you through those decisions.

Specifically you are:

• Experienced - you’re a proven product practitioner with a strong grasp on the fundamentals and putting them into action to drive real, measurable impact. 
• User-centred - the needs of the people youre building for are always your North Star. 
• Strategically minded - you connect the dots between user needs, business goals, and delivery realities. 
• A storyteller - you make the complex simple and craft compelling narratives that bring others with you. 
• Emotionally intelligent - you know how to read a room, build trust, and navigate disagreement with respect. 
• Adaptable - you thrive in ambiguity, bring structure where there is none, and can onboard quickly. 
• Accountable - you make tough calls, hold yourself and others to account, and aren’t afraid to say no to ensure a product succeeds. 
• A multiplier - you drive teams forward and you make everyone around you better. 

How You Operate:

We believe great product management is about outcomes, not outputs. 

Heres what that looks like day to day: 

• Lead with vision - set a clear direction and reinforce it through team discussions, planning sessions, and stakeholder updates.
• Frame problems before solutions - continuously discover, ask the right questions, and ensure the team is solving the right problem. 
• Champion the user - bring real user insight into every conversation and every decision, ensuring it shapes priorities and trade-offs. 
• Collaborate openly - work across disciplines (design, engineering, data, policy) as true problem-solving partners. 
• Facilitate with purpose - run workshops and meetings that lead to clear decisions and shared understanding. 
• Drive progress - take ownership and ensure the team gets over the line. 
• Deliver with integrity - do the right thing, including having difficult conversations when needed, so we can proudly stand behind our work. 

When working with our clients, expectations are often aligned to SFIA and DDaT frameworks. Experience working in these environments is desirable, but not essential. 

Additional Information

At Version 1, we believe in providing our employees with a comprehensive benefits package that prioritises their wellbeing, professional growth, and financial stability.

• Share in our success with our Quarterly Performance-Related Profit Share Scheme, where employees collectively benefit from a share of our companys profits
• Strong Career Progression & mentorship coaching through our Strength in Balance & Leadership schemes with a dedicated quarterly Pathways Career Development programme
• Flexible/remote working, Version 1 is tremendously understanding of life events and people’s individual circumstances and offer flexibility to help achieve a healthy work life balance
• Financial Wellbeing initiatives including; Version 1 Pension with a 5% employee-matched contribution, Private Healthcare Cover, Life Assurance, Financial advice and an Employee Discount scheme
• Employee Wellbeing schemes including Gym Discounts, Bike to Work, Fitness classes, Mindfulness Workshops, Employee Assistance Programme and much more. 
• 24 days holiday allowance plus Public Holidays, enhanced maternity/paternity leave, marriage/civil partnership leave and special leave policies
• Educational assistance, incentivised certifications, and accreditations, including AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, and Red Hat
• Reward schemes including Version 1’s Annual Excellence Awards & quarterly Star Awards.
• Environment, Social and Community First initiatives allow you to get involved in local fundraising and development opportunities as part of fostering our diversity, inclusion and belonging schemes.

And many more exciting benefits… drop us a note to find out more.

Version 1 is an equal opportunities employer

We are committed to building a diverse, inclusive and respectful workplace where everyone feels valued and able to thrive. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, identities and lived experiences, and we value the different perspectives people bring including those shaped by disability and neurodiversity.

We want every candidate to have a positive and accessible recruitment experience. If you need reasonable adjustments at any stage of the process, please contact Ashley.Smith@version1.com at Version 1. We will consider all requests carefully, respectfully and confidentially.

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