Lead Delivery Manager

CDS Tech is the newly formed technology services arm of Bailie Group, a family-owned group of human-centred communications and technology services businesses. With a strong heritage in delivering critical transformation projects, CDS Tech is poised to become the 'go to' professional services partner for Cloud, Security, Data and Digital transformation services - both in the UK and beyond. Underpinned by a People First and Client Obsessed mindset, our ambition is to drive meaningful impact for our clients, their audiences, their users, and society. Societal impact is not just an outcome - it's our north star, guiding everything we do and ensuring we make a lasting, positive difference.

The role

Our Delivery Managers are ultimately responsible for the successful delivery of our client engagements. Lead Delivery Managers are experienced Delivery Managers within CDS. They lead mid to large size engagements and provide leadership within the delivery function across our clients internally. They are a champion for an agile mindset and ways of working and apply agility to all projects while showcasing an agile mindset and culture. They promote what good looks like internally and externally.

Responsibilities

Lead Delivery Managers play a key role on our clients and as such they have several important responsibilities within the business which are essential to being able to perform their role successfully.

Delivery Ownership

You'll take end-to-end ownership of medium to large client engagements, ensuring delivery success from inception to completion whilst providing leadership across the delivery function. This means crafting and managing delivery plans, facilitating informed decision-making by ensuring the right information reaches the right people at the right time, and being accountable for outcomes that matter to our clients whilst mentoring others in delivery excellence.

Delivery Oversight

You'll maintain a clear focus on scope, quality, time, and cost throughout your engagements, keeping everything on track through proactive management. By identifying and addressing risks early, championing agile principles, and remaining comfortable with different ways of working, you'll ensure delivery excellence while adapting to what works best for each client engagement and demonstrating what good looks like to others.

Client Relationship Management

You'll build trusted partnerships with our clients founded on transparency, honesty, and open communication-including having those difficult conversations when they're needed. Through clear internal and external reporting (ideally automated where possible), you'll promote visibility and ensure everyone stays informed and aligned, whilst beginning to represent CDS externally within the delivery community.

Team Enablement and Continuous Improvement

You'll act as a servant leader, removing blockers and creating the conditions for your teams to thrive and deliver their best work. By fostering continuous improvement, facilitating retrospectives that drive meaningful change, and empowering teams to solve challenges, you'll help teams grow stronger with each iteration. You'll create psychologically safe environments where people feel comfortable raising issues, sharing ideas, and contributing their best thinking.

You'll work closely with diverse teams including engineers, architects, testers, product owners, and business analysts to create an environment where everyone can do their best work. By fostering collaboration and creating safe spaces for innovation and continuous improvement, you'll help teams deliver outcomes that exceed expectations whilst providing leadership and guidance to less experienced delivery professionals.

Commercial Support

You'll play an active role in our growth by contributing to presales activities, client proposals, and bid content. This includes attending pitches, supporting delivery planning and budgeting, and providing forecasting and resourcing insights that help us win and set up new engagements for success.

Skills

Lead Delivery Managers need to have a broad and modern delivery skill set which acts as a toolbox enabling them to work across different clients and project setups. As experienced Delivery Managers within CDS, they need to be able to adapt to many different delivery scenarios.

Required Skills

These are the skills that our delivery managers need to perform their role successfully.

Agile methodologies - Extensive understanding of agile principles and practices that you can adapt and tailor to diverse client contexts

Risk management - Excellent ability to identify, assess, and mitigate risks before they become issues, including managing complex risk landscapes

Commercial and business acumen - Strong understanding of client industries, business models, and commercial drivers, with the ability to align delivery approaches to business objectives

Dependency management - Highly skilled at mapping and managing dependencies across teams, workstreams, and external factors in complex environments

Roadmap planning - Proven experience creating and maintaining strategic roadmaps that balance ambition with reality across multiple initiatives

Prioritisation - Excellent judgement in helping teams focus on what matters most and deliver maximum value, even in ambiguous situations

Servant leadership - A leadership style that empowers and supports teams rather than directs from above, whilst mentoring others in this approach

Stakeholder management - Excellent at building relationships and managing expectations across diverse and senior stakeholder groups, including C suite

Communication skills - Clear, empathetic, and effective communication across all levels, from technical teams to C suite executives

Budget management - Confident managing complex budgets, tracking spend, forecasting, and making informed financial decisions

Workload management tooling - Extensive hands on experience with tools like Jira, Azure DevOps, or similar platforms to manage delivery

Conflict resolution - The ability to navigate complex disagreements constructively and find solutions that work for everyone

Coaching and mentoring - Proven experience supporting and developing team members and less experienced delivery professionals

Facilitation techniques - Highly skilled at running workshops, retrospectives, and strategic sessions with senior stakeholders and diverse groups

Desired Skills

If you have these skills, they will help you excel.

Cloudflare engagement experience - Previous experience delivering projects or engagements specifically with Cloudflare

Public sector experience - Understanding of public sector ways of working, procurement, and governance

There are many compelling reasons to join our newly formed technology services business, and we'll bring these to life when we meet you during the process. For now, though, we believe the following aspects offer an exciting opportunity for the right candidate.

Shaping the future of CDS Tech - your work will directly impact our brand, market positioning, revenue growth, and success.

Autonomy and ownership - a unique opportunity to own the delivery function and drive real impact for clients and programs of work that genuinely make a positive difference to society.

High impact partnerships - work with some world leading, most recognisable technology brands as our partners and position CDS Tech for success.

Competitive package - attractive salary and benefits, meaningful work and genuine opportunities for growth and professional development.

Vetting

Due to the nature of this role and the business, you will need to either currently hold or be able to obtain UK Government clearance to a minimum of SC level.

Values

Our values were created by everyone in CDS Tech working together. They are Tenacity, Togetherness, Integrity, Curiosity and Challenging. Our values are weaved throughout the company, from recruitment to who we work with, and people's expectations. We are looking for people who share the same values and will enrich our culture with their own background and experiences.

Hybrid & Homeworking

To ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of our employees we have minimum standards for homeworking environments which must be maintained. Further details are available on request.

At CDS, we work hybrid, and we are looking for people commutable to our central Leeds office. We ask our people to come into the office at least 2 days a week to build connections and encourage collaborative work.

In return we offer

Smart, engaged co workers and a culture of inclusion, innovation, and opportunity

A business focused on professional development and personal growth opportunities

Company pension and life assurance scheme

Medicash health plan - online GP access, support services & discounted gym membership