This role may be located in one of the following locations; Birmingham, Blackpool, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle or Sheffield.
Please find further information on the Corporate hub locations here.
Please note that for candidates requesting to work in Newcastle, this role will be based at Benton Park View from September 2025, and then at 1 Pilgrim Place in Newcastle city centre by the end of 2027.
Job Summary
Are you an engaging leader with advanced Product Management skills?
Are you a Product Manager with data experience who thrives on managing large complex problems?
Are you as passionate about people as you are about products, ready to lead teams in defining, designing, and delivering a vision that creates real value for users?
If so, this could be the ideal opportunity for you.
This role sits within our Health and Disability area and is focused on shaping product strategy to improve services, ensuring that people with a health condition or disability receive the support they need. You will lead work across multiple product teams and manage products at different stages of the lifecycle, driving outcomes that align with departmental priorities. Working closely with the lead product manager and agile teams, you will make informed decisions based on quality and value, while also holding line management responsibility for product managers.
You will lead and drive product development for a complex area of our organisation, a major programme, or a core service, ensuring delivery of high-value outcomes. You will bring a deep understanding of product management principles and techniques, applying them effectively even if not specialising in a single methodology.
Job Description
As a senior product manager, you will:
- Lead and inspire digital professionals, setting clear direction and enabling the creation of products that align with strategic objectives.
- Build and maintain strong relationships across organisational boundaries, influencing and gaining support for agreed priorities and outcomes.
- Define and communicate product strategy, creating value-driven roadmaps that guide teams and stakeholders effectively.
- Drive continuous improvement in product maturity, enhancing performance, quality, and delivery standards.
- Champion user-centred design principles, ensuring customer insight informs the development of digital services and maintaining a high level of user awareness.
- Lead and manage significant transformational change within complex environments, ensuring successful delivery and adoption.
- Manage and develop a team of product managers, providing coaching, mentoring, and support to build capability and foster a high-performing culture.
As a Senior Product Manager, You Will
- Lead and inspire digital professionals, setting clear direction and enabling the creation of products that align with strategic objectives.
- Build and maintain strong relationships across organisational boundaries, influencing and gaining support for agreed priorities and outcomes.
- Define and communicate product strategy, creating value-driven roadmaps that guide teams and stakeholders effectively.
- Drive continuous improvement in product maturity, enhancing performance, quality, and delivery standards.
- Champion user-centred design principles, ensuring customer insight informs the development of digital services and maintaining a high level of user awareness.
- Lead and manage significant transformational change within complex environments, ensuring successful delivery and adoption.
- Manage and develop a team of product managers, providing coaching, mentoring, and support to build capability and foster a high-performing culture.
Person specification
See selection process for further details.
If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact Caicy.sandford1@dwp.gov.uk.
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
Alongside your salary of £75,026, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £21,735 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
We also have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:
- Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
- Generous annual leave – at least 25 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (pro–rata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave.
- Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme.
- Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly).
- Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 year’s continuous service.
- Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes.
- An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Women’s Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.
Hybrid Working
This role may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in their DWP office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your office will be your contractual place of work.
If a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for the role and for you, you will normally be required to spend a minimum of 60% of your contracted working hours from your DWP office.
If you have a disability, caring responsibilities, or other circumstances that may affect your ability to meet the minimum office attendance requirement, please discuss this with us using the contact details in this advert.
Salary Information
New entrants to the Civil Service will join on band minimum.
Existing Civil Servants who secure a new role on lateral transfer should maintain their current salary.
Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion will move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or receive a 10% increase in salary, whichever is greater.
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.
Stage 1: Application
Your Application Will Consist Of Four Parts
- A Personal Details application form.
- Employment history - this should contain your work experience and any skills, qualifications and accomplishments relevant to the jobs you have completed.
- Personal statement - up to 750 words. This statement should be used to provide examples of how you meet the essential criteria below:
- Coaching and mentoring – Evidence how you have experience of mentoring and coaching product people and teams to deliver highly quality products and services.
- User centred design – Evidence how you have worked with users to represent their needs in making a priority call so that value is delivered at the earliest opportunity.
- Stakeholder management - Evidence of your experience of influencing stakeholders in a difficult circumstance and how you diffused a challenging situation.
- Agile – Evidence of your experience of knowing what the right way of working is and when agile is most appropriate.
- Product Leadership – Evidence of how you have actively led a product or products, how you set the goal and direction of travel, to ensure the team succeed.
- Technical statement (up to 250 words). The following statement is aligned to the required technical skill of Product Management.
- Provide evidence of when you have led more than one team simultaneously to identify and communicate product outcomes across the different phases of the product lifecycle.
Ensure that all examples provided in your statements are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. If you choose to use gen-AI to support your statements, you must follow the guidelines outlined in the
Artificial intelligence and recruitment guide.
The sift panel will use the information in your employment history, personal statement, and technical statement to assess your experience, skills and knowledge.
An initial sift will be conducted using the technical statement. Candidates who pass the initial sift will be progressed to a full sift.
If you do progress to a full sift, you will be provided with one combined overall assessment score for both your employment history and Personal Statement.
For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit Applying for jobs at DWP Digital.
Important Information
- You will be asked to complete your employment history. Any information that you would customarily share on a CV should therefore be entered onto the application form.
- Personal details that could be used to identify you including your name, contact details and address must be removed for your application to be considered.
- If your employment history, personal statement or technical statement contain any personal details your application will be withdrawn.
- 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. A candidate’s guide to artificial intelligence (AI) in recruitment.
Stage 2: Interview
If you’re successful at the sift stage, you’ll be invited to a video interview via Microsoft Teams. During the interview, you’ll be assessed against the experience criteria listed under both the essential and technical skill.
You Will Be Asked To Do a 10 Minute Presentation To Further Assess Your Experience Aligned To The Technical Skill Product Management. Your Presentation Should Focus On The Following
Demonstrate how you defined and communicated product outcomes across different phases of the lifecycle, and explain the value those outcomes delivered.
Interviews will take place from late January 2026. Interview dates to be confirmed.
Other Information
If high application volumes are received, the benchmark for candidates to proceed to the next stage may be raised. In line with our commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS), we aim to advance all candidates applying under the DCS who meet the minimum standard. However, we may only progress those candidates who best meet the required standards.
All successful candidates and those placed on reserve will be posted in merit list order by location.
For these vacancies, we strongly recommend that applicants consult with an immigration specialist or qualified advisor to assess their eligibility for Visa Sponsorship before deciding to apply. Please note that while we consider sponsorship requests in accordance with current DWP guidance and Home Office policy, sponsorship cannot be guaranteed.
Reasonable Adjustment
At DWP we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce.
We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia.
If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: Contact Government Recruitment Service via
DigitalRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.
Complete the “Reasonable Adjustments” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.
For further information on reasonable adjustments, terms and conditions and how we recruit visit the How we recruit page.
Find out more about Working for DWP
A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made.
Reserve list candidates will be posted in merit order by location.
The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Applications will be screened and if evidence of plagiarism or copying examples/answers from other sources is found, your application will be withdrawn. Internal DWP candidates may also face disciplinary action.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Nationality requirements
This Job Is Broadly Open To The Following Groups
- UK nationals
- 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) (opens in a new window)
- 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
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.
Diversity and Inclusion
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.
Contact point for applicants
Job Contact
- Name : Caicy Sandford
- Email : Caicy.sandford1@dwp.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : DigitalRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Further information
Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles. If you wish to make a complaint, please find further details here: https://careers.dwp.gov.uk/how-we-recruit/.
