Job summary
- Main area
- Architecture & Standards
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8c
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time
- Part time
- Job share
- Flexible working
- Job ref
- 990-990-TDD-D&A-EC3999-E
- Employer
- NHS England
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Wellington House
- Town
- London
- Salary
- £88,250 - £100,355 per annum (inclusive of London Weighting)
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 25/11/2026 23:59
Employer heading
Lead Delivery Manager
NHS AfC: Band 8c
Our Organisation
We share the core values set out in the NHS Constitution, which all colleagues are expected to demonstrate.
We support you to work in a way that is best for the NHS, our patients and you and your colleagues. Talk to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement, whether that’s a job share, part time, hybrid working or another flexible pattern.
As part of our commitment to improving patient safety and maintaining safe and trusted services, all successful candidates will be subject to Baseline Personnel Security Screening (BPSS), which includes a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. By submitting your application, you are confirming your agreement to these checks being undertaken as part of the recruitment process.
Anyone who has received a voluntary or compulsory redundancy payment from NHS England since the start of the 2026/27 financial year is not eligible to apply.
Job overview
About the role
This is an exciting opportunity to help shape the future of health and care through AI.
The 10 Year Health Plan represents one of the biggest transformations in the history of the NHS, with AI central to creating smarter, more responsive services. As a Lead Delivery Manager (AI Portfolio), you’ll sit at the heart of this transformation, combining senior delivery expertise with strong AI, data and digital knowledge to turn ambitious ideas into safe, effective services at scale.
You’ll lead multidisciplinary teams across the full delivery lifecycle, from discovery and experimentation through to adoption and live operation. Working across product, data science, machine learning, engineering, design, clinical safety and responsible AI, you’ll ensure solutions are useful, safe, sustainable and deliver measurable benefits.
We are looking for candidates can bring the best of delivery leadership and apply this to simultaneous deliveries, whilst recognising from experience that AI discovery, data readiness, model evaluation, assurance and operational monitoring may require different delivery cadences from conventional digital services.
If you want to help turn the potential of AI into real-world improvements for digital and data products and services, and have the right blend of delivery expertise and AI literacy, this is an exceptional opportunity to make an impact.
Main duties of the job
· Lead delivery across a portfolio of AI-enabled products or services from discovery through to live operation
· Enable multidisciplinary teams to deliver value using agile, lean and user-centred ways of working
· Work with product, clinical, operational, technical and supplier stakeholders to turn priorities and user needs into clear delivery plans, roadmaps and success measures
· Manage delivery plans, milestones, risks, issues, dependencies, blockers and performance reporting across multiple workstreams
· Support products and services through governance, assurance and approval processes
· Ensure appropriate consideration of clinical safety, information governance, cyber security, accessibility, responsible AI, adoption and live-service support
· Manage delivery risks associated with AI-enabled services, including data readiness, model performance, user trust, monitoring and operational readiness
· Coordinate stakeholders across health and care organisations, suppliers and partner teams to support implementation, adoption and continuous improvement
· Build and sustain effective multidisciplinary teams, adapting team structures and ways of working to meet delivery needs
Working for our organisation
NHS England has a wide range of statutory functions, responsibilities and regulatory powers. These are focused on supporting the wider NHS to deliver high quality care, as well as doing those things that are best done once for the whole NHS.
Our staff bring expertise across clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial specialisms — enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.
In March 2025, the Government announced that NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the department.
If you currently work within the NHS and if successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the process.
Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in our offices.
Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.
We cannot offer visa sponsorship for any vacancies.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Other duties of this role include;
Coaching and supporting Delivery Managers and teams to improve agile maturity, delivery confidence and consistency of practice; Building strong relationships with suppliers and stakeholders, ensuring delivery remains aligned to agreed priorities and outcomes; Communicating complex information clearly to technical and non-technical audiences through reports, governance updates and presentations; Supporting benefits realisation, transition into live service and continuous improvement and Leading lasting improvement in agile, lean and user-centred delivery practice across teams and partner organisations.
You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, and person specification in the attached Job Description. Please ensure your supporting statement includes demonstratable evidence and specific examples on how you meet the criteria for each of the key skills specified. This will be used in both the shortlisting and interview processes.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Educated to master’s level or equivalent qualification/delivery experience.
Desirable criteria
- Degree-level or postgraduate study, training, certification or substantial demonstrable CPD in artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science or responsible AI, or equivalent experience. Able to explain AI concepts, limitations, evaluation evidence and delivery trade-offs confidently to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Skills
Essential criteria
- Planning and organising a broad range of complex activities, formulating and adjusting plans to reflect changing circumstances.
- Removing impediments and blockers that get in the way of delivery. Actively addressing complex risks, issues and dependencies, including those where no clear ownership exists and often identifying innovative ways to unblock issues. Ability to make and justify contentious and risky decisions related to delivery.
- Managing a broad range of diverse stakeholders, understanding their needs, managing expectations and building consensus. Ability to facilitate discussions about high risk and complexity within constrained timescales.
Knowledge
Desirable criteria
- Leading delivery across a portfolio of concurrent AI-enabled products and use cases, coordinating multiple multidisciplinary teams and interdependencies across discovery, data readiness, feasibility, development or integration, evaluation, responsible AI assurance, deployment and operational monitoring. Experience should span more than one AI capability, for example generative AI, predictive analytics, automation or decision support.
- Knowledge and experience of governing, assuring and managing risks associated with AI-enabled products, ensuring safe, compliant and effective adoption in a regulated environment.
Experience
Essential criteria
- • Extensive experience of applying agile values and principles (from the agile manifesto) and lean thinking into practice to enable a multi-disciplinary user-centred development team and/or team of teams, to successfully deliver value through digital features or a product or service
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
This post will require a submission for Disclosure to be made to check for any unspent criminal convictions.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Jonathan Orritt
- Job title
- Chief AI Architect
- Email address
- [email protected]
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