Service Owner- Hampshire

Our client is seeking a Service Owner accountable for the quality, performance, benefits and outcomes of a digital service. The role provides clear direction, prioritises work, manages risk and makes timely decisions to help teams deliver measurable value for users and the organisation. The Service Owner promotes user-centred design, compliance with the Government Service Standard and secure-by-design delivery. They will rebuild delivery confidence, improve governance across three suppliers and lead a 30/60/90-day recovery focused on environment hardening, compliance-by-design and user-tested end-to-end candidate journeys.

• Own and communicate a clear service vision, strategy and roadmap that delivers agreed outcomes and benefits; secure organisational alignment and buy‑in.
• Stand up and lead monthly technology governance (scope: pace, risk, design, security, compliance) with a transparent RACI and decision log across the three external suppliers.
• Champion alignment to the Government Service Standard (GDS); embed mock assessments within sprint reviews and track findings to closure.
• Ensure proportionate governance and assurance; guide teams through service assessments and audit readiness.
• Define measurable benefits and ensure value for money across competing priorities.
• Manage supplier relationships to improve quality and outcomes; act as an escalation point for commercial and financial risks.
  
• Re‑enable prototyping (including compliant hosting) and stand up UX and content design to unblock wireframes and journeys.
• Prioritise and deliver one fully testable end‑to‑end candidate journey per sprint, embedding journey‑based prioritisation in the backlog and ensuring accessibility and content quality.
  
• Set and iterate delivery standards across suppliers.
• Promote collaboration and experiment with pragmatic ways of working that enhance outcomes in a high‑governance setting.
  
• Put in place a scalable operating model that coordinates operations, policy, digital and delivery to provide a resilient, high‑quality service; act as escalation for major incidents.
• Drive environment hardening (e.g., development/test rebuild with baseline controls, CI/CD checks for NFRs, pre‑prod gates) and continuous improvement of logging and observability.
  
• Work with partners to embed secure‑by‑design within multidisciplinary teams; enforce critical controls (e.g., MFA), uplift logging standards, and integrate NFRs into automated testing and pipelines.
• Lead design assurance for high‑risk data assets (e.g., the "Candidate Lake"), including threat‑modelling and agreed security controls.
• Use evidence to decide when to continue, pivot or stop; guide colleagues and stakeholders through discovery, alpha, beta, live and retirement.
• Ensure readiness for upcoming Alpha assessment milestones.
  
• Direct the stakeholder strategy across suppliers and the authority; align objectives and resolve blockers, including cross‑programme dependencies with policy and operations.
• Influence senior stakeholders to enable progress and maintain momentum.      

• End‑to‑end accountability for a live or near‑live government service, with a strong track record of preparing for and passing GDS Service Standard assessments.
• Leading multi‑supplier delivery (including technology and delivery partners with clear governance, SLIs/SLOs and joint risk management.
• Embedding secure‑by‑design practices, including MFA enforcement, logging/observability standards and NFRs in CI/CD.
• Standing up UX/content capability and restoring compliant prototyping to drive journey‑based delivery.
• Defining and using service metrics (e.g., time‑of‑flight) and standardising Jira → programme reporting for decision‑making.
• Assuring high‑risk personal data solutions (e.g., Candidate Lake) with documented threat models and agreed controls.

• Passing GDS Alpha assessments with strong evidence packs; preparing teams for external audits and service reviews.
• Delivering turnarounds through 30/60/90‑day recovery plans and monthly governance cadences.

We are a business and technology consultancy and one of the UK's leading employers, recruiting the brightest talent to become the innovators of tomorrow. We have centres across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific, and a global workforce of over 3,500 Consultants. FDM has shown exponential growth throughout the years, firmly establishing itself as an award-winning employer and is listed on the FTSE4Good Index. 

Diversity and Inclusion  

FDM Group is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or any other status protected by federal, provincial or local laws.