Architecture and Data, Digital, Engineering, Information Technology, Operational Delivery, Senior Leadership
Working pattern Full time, Part time, Flexible Working, Job share
Number of roles available 2
Senior Product Manager
Location(s)
Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Leicester, London, Normanton (Calder), Warrington
About the Role
Information about the Command
Digital, Data & Technology (DDaT), supports NCA operational commands with how we exploit data and to ensure the NCA uses the best technology platforms with the right tools and applications to further enable the NCA to protecting the public from serious and organised crime. We are responsible for defining and delivering our data and technology strategy, policy and architecture, and building and sustaining resilient services which are critical to our mission success.The pace of change within the digital and tech world means we need to be agile and innovative in how we respond to threats while exploiting the opportunities this presents.
Information about the Business Area
Enterprise Services provides and manages the enterprise IT capabilities that support the NCA and its partners in delivering operational outcomes across the Serious and Organised Crime (SOC) system. Operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year round, the team ensures services are reliable, resilient, and available when they are needed most.Working in partnership with suppliers, Enterprise Services maintains a strong focus on delivering cost-effective, high-quality services that meet current organisational needs while supporting ongoing transformation. The team leads the introduction of new services into live operation, ensuring they are implemented smoothly and deliver tangible value across the estate.Enterprise Services plays a critical role in managing and driving the supply chain, enabling the NCA to remain agile and responsive, while building and sustaining a future-ready technology environment.
Role Summary
The Senior Product Manager is a pivotal leadership role within the National Crime Agency’s Enterprise Services Digital Platforms function, responsible for shaping and delivering complex, high‑risk and technically sophisticated digital products and platforms. Acting as a bridge between organisational ambition and technical execution, the role ensures that corporate digital platforms, infrastructure and shared technical services align with strategic objectives while meeting the needs of users, customers and partners. The postholder will bring strong leadership, communication and organisational skills, underpinned by a solid technical background, and will lead multidisciplinary teams to deliver high‑quality, high‑value digital outcomes that support the Agency’s mission.
Role Description
As a Senior Product Manager, you will lead a portfolio of complex technology platforms, infrastructure and shared services that support critical operational capabilities.
You will own the vision, strategy and roadmap, ensuring digital platforms meet user and organisational needs while remaining secure, resilient, sustainable and aligned with technical and engineering standards.
Combining strong product leadership with technical knowledge, you will understand how platforms are architected, engineered, integrated, secured and operated. You will define technical requirements, challenge proposed solutions and make informed decisions about priorities, investment and future development.
Working with engineers, architects, cyber security, service management and delivery teams, you will balance user and business needs with architecture, security, resilience, performance, supportability and technical debt. You will manage technical risks and dependencies throughout the product lifecycle and drive continuous improvement.
You will also work closely with stakeholders and suppliers, acting as an intelligent customer to ensure services deliver the required quality, performance and value.
This role aligns to Senior Product Manager in the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework .
Strategy and Vision: Own the vision, strategy and roadmap for technical platforms and shared services, aligned to user and organisational needs.
Technical Leadership: Understand platform architecture, dependencies, security and operations to assess options, challenge proposals and make informed decisions.
Lifecycle Management: Lead products through discovery, development, live operation, continuous improvement, modernisation and retirement.
Prioritisation and Resilience: Balance new capabilities with security, resilience, maintenance, upgrades, technical debt, operational support and cost.
Performance and Improvement: Use service, technical and user data to improve reliability, performance, supportability and user experience, while promoting reuse.
Risk and Governance: Manage technical risks and dependencies, providing clear recommendations and trade-offs to senior stakeholders and governance forums.
Multidisciplinary Leadership: Lead across engineering, architecture, cyber security, service management, operations, commercial and delivery teams.
People and Capability: Lead and develop Technical Product Managers and contribute to the growth of the Product Management profession.
Stakeholders and Suppliers: Build strong stakeholder and supplier relationships, ensuring effective delivery, quality, security and performance.
Financial and Value Management: Understand platform costs, support investment decisions and ensure services deliver value for money.
Person Specification
Technical Expertise: Strong technical understanding gained through engineering, computer science or relevant experience in software, infrastructure, testing or a related technical discipline.
Product Management: Proven experience managing complex technical products or services, balancing user and business needs with technical constraints, dependencies and priorities.
Technical Product Leadership: Experience leading, coaching and developing Product Managers or Product Owners, and contributing to effective product management practices.
Platforms and Infrastructure: Experience working with infrastructure, platforms or shared technical services, including reuse, technical debt, resilience, scalability and simplification.
Leadership and Delivery: Experience leading teams in complex environments, working across multiple disciplines and using agile approaches to deliver and measure outcomes.
Communication and Influence: Strong communication and influencing skills, with the ability to explain complex technical issues, build relationships and secure senior stakeholder buy-in.
Desirable criteria are only used for assessment in the event of a tie break.
Professional experience or a qualification in software engineering, computer science, cloud computing, infrastructure, architecture (e.g., COBIT / TOGAF) or a related discipline.Experience with public cloud, platform engineering, developer platforms, infrastructure automation or continuous delivery.Knowledge of ITIL, service management, enterprise architecture, technical risk, legacy modernisation, observability or cloud cost management.Relevant product, cloud, architecture, service-management, security or Agile accreditation.Demonstrable experience owning a complex technology platform as a product, including setting its strategy and roadmap and making informed trade-offs between user value, engineering feasibility, security, resilience, technical debt and cost.
A pay flexibility case seeking to modernise NCA pay frameworks was approved by the Government in July 2026. The NCA recognises and engages in collective bargaining with three trade unions: The National Crime Officers Association (NCOA), Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) and FDA. Therefore, our terms and conditions are currently undergoing a formal review, in consultation with these recognised trade unions. The outcome is expected to be known by early 2027.
Allowances are reviewed annually and may be increased, decreased or removed.
All salary offers will be made in line with Remuneration Policy.
- Roles based in London will receive an additional London Weighting (Per Annum) of £4,379
All NCA employees are members of the UK Civil Service and eligible for the Civil Service pension scheme, alongside your salary the NCA contributes £20330. Further information on the benefits of the scheme is available on the Civil Service Pension Website.
New entrants to the NCA receive 26 days annual leave, rising to 31 on completion of 5 years continuous service, plus 8 bank holidays.
If qualifying criteria is met new joiners from UK Police Forces or the UK Intelligence Community (UKIC) will have service with those employers taken into account for continuous service purposes for annual leave entitlement only, this will be up to a maximum of 31 days leave (including 1 privilege day).
Other benefits include:
- Flexible working, including flexi-time, compressed hours and job sharing (in line with business requirements)
- Family friendly policies, notably above the statutory minimum
- Learning and Development opportunities
- Interest free loans and advances, including season tickets, childcare and rental deposits
- Discounts and Savings with a wide variety of services including Cycle to Work, Smart Tech schemes, dental insurance, gym discounts and savings on everyday spending, available through the Reward Gateway | Edenred and Blue Light Card schemes.
- Staff support groups/networks
- Sports and social activities, including membership to the Civil Service Sports Council (CSSC)
This vacancy is using the Success Profiles framework and will assess using the following criteria: Behaviours, Experience, Technical Skills
Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
How we will assess you
Your application will be assessed against the following:
Technical – this will be assessed by 250 word examples on:
- Experience of effective stakeholder management, including building and maintaining strong working relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders.
- Experience of effective product management across the full product lifecycle.
Please include your full career history, training, qualifications, key responsibilities, and achievements. Explain any employment gaps in the last two years. Ensure all accreditation dates are accurate.
Details of what is expected within your CV are as follows: Clearly evidence how you meet the Person Specification for this role, including the desirable criteria. CVs must be formatted in 11pt font and not exceed THREE pages. Please note that any content beyond the third page will not be considered as part of the assessment.
Experience Criteria – will be assessed by 250word examples on:
- Experience of applying technical knowledge to drive improvements across the IT estate, including identifying opportunities to remove duplication, simplify systems and reduce technical complexity.
- Experience as an effective communicator who can translate complex technical concepts into clear, business‑focused language to support decision‑making and problem‑solving.
A panel will assess how well your application demonstrates the requirements outlined above.
In the event of a high number of applications, we may operate a longlist. Applicants will need to meet the minimum pass mark for the lead criteria.
– Experience of applying technical knowledge to drive improvements across the IT estate, including identifying opportunities to remove duplication, simplify systems and reduce technical complexity..
Candidates who do not meet the minimum pass mark for the lead criteria will not progress to having their other criteria assessed. Applications must meet the minimum criteria to be progressed to the assessment stage.
You will receive an acknowledgement once your application is submitted.
We aim to have sift completed and scores released within 10 working days of the closing date of the advert. For high volume campaigns this timeframe may be extended.
Scores will be provided but further feedback will not be available at this stage.
The format of this assessment will be Interview which will be tested on the criteria listed in the Success Profiles at Assessment section.
- Experience of effective stakeholder management, including building and maintaining strong working relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders.
- Experience of effective product management across the full product lifecycle.
Assessment Outcome
Outcomes will be communicated via the NCA recruitment portal.If successful but no role is immediately available, you may be placed on a reserve list for 12 months.Reserve lists can be used to fill similar role types across the Agency where the assessment criteria is considered a match by the recruitment team and the business area.
In the event of a tie at the assessment stage, available roles will be offered in merit order using the following order:
- Lead criteria (behaviours/technical/experience)
- If still tied, desirable criteria will be assessed (if advertised)
- If still tied, application sift scores will be used
Feedback is provided only to those who attend an assessment.
You will be subject to vetting and pre-employment checks before appointment.
Once the vacancy closes, the advert will no longer be accessible. Please save a copy for your records.
Eligibility, Pre-Employment Check and Vetting
If you are an internal candidate who has passed interview but is undergoing an internal investigation or have a written warning in place preventing a post move you may not be able to be posted until this investigation is concluded or restriction lifted.
Nationality Requirements
UK nationals or dual nationals, where one component is British
Nationals of the Republic of Ireland
Nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
Nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
Nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre- settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
Individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
You will be required to participate in digital right to work and address checks as part of the recruitment process.
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is SC Enhanced. All security clearances will be managed by the NCA.
Prior to commencing the role, you will need to successfully complete SC Enhanced clearance and then achieve DV Enhanced clearance within the first 12 months in post.
The requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years.
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