Head of Release Manage

Day rate of £869 inside of IR35Opportunity to work on a greenfield implantationAbout Our ClientThe company is a well-established organisation within the financial services industry with a large and professional team.Job DescriptionStrategy & Governance* Define the multi-year roadmap and develop and implement a Release Management strategy aligned with business objectives, technology roadmap, and regulatory requirements.* Design, hire, and manage the structure of the team, leveraging both internal staff and external vendors, optimising the balance between cost-efficiency and delivery speed.* Align with business objectives, regulatory requirements, and technology roadmaps.* Establish governance frameworks, policies, and standards for release planning, environment lifecycle, and compliance.* Define and maintain audit-ready controls for release management.* Partner with other technology teams to drive DevOps adoption, automation, and continuous delivery practices.Release Management* Own the release calendar, governance framework, and readiness checkpoints.* Oversee planning, coordination, and execution of releases across multiple platforms.* Establish Quality metrics (e.g DORA) and KPIs (e.g., release quality, deployment frequency, change success rate, MTTR) and monitor performance.* Serve as the primary point of contact for internal and external auditors regarding the release management process, providing evidence of control adherence, automated audit trails, and policy enforcement.Environment Management* Define and enforce environment lifecycle policies (provisioning, refresh, decommissioning).* Ensure non-production environments are available, stable, and compliant with security and data privacy standards.* Oversee data refresh and masking processes to meet GDPR and regulatory requirements.* Prevent configuration drift and maintain parity with production where required.* Governance & Compliance* Ensure compliance with Digital Operational Resilience Act ICT change management, ISO 27001, and internal audit requirements.* Maintain documentation and evidence for regulatory inspections and audits.* Conduct risk assessments for releases and environment changes; implement mitigation plans.Stakeholder Engagement* Act as the primary escalation point for release and environment issues.* Engage with business leaders, product owners, and technology teams to align priorities and resolve conflicts.* Manage relationships with third-party vendors and service providers for environment and release services.* Team Leadership* Build and lead a high-performing team of release managers, environment coordinators, and analysts.* Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.* Develop capability through training, mentoring, and succession planning.Miscellaneous * Developing skills pertinent to role.* Undertaking other reasonable tasks at the discretion of the Head of Section and GroThe Successful ApplicantA successful Head of Release Management should have:Domain Knowledge: Extensive experience in release and environment management within banking or regulated industries managing a global, enterprise-level function and proven ability to manage complex dependencies across multiple programmes with excellent stakeholder management, communication, and leadership skills.Financial Sector Experience: Deep experience in a senior technology leadership role within a highly regulated financial services institution, demonstrating fluency with banking compliance and audit cycles.Leadership: Proven ability to drive large-scale cultural and technological change across diverse and sometimes conflicting product and operations teams.Technical Acumen: Strategic understanding of modern software architecture (microservices), CI/CD toolchains, DevOps principles, and large-scale environment virtualisation/containerisation technologies (e.g., Kubernetes).Regulatory Knowledge: Understanding of compliance requirements related to IT Release or Change Management practices, such as DORA, FCA/PRA, ISO standards).Methodologies: Experience with scaled agile frameworks (e.g., SAFe) and other SDLC methodologiesWhat's on OfferDaily rate of £869 a day inside IR35.Opportunity to contribute to high-impact projects within the financial services industry.Be part of a professional and supportive technology team.If you are ready to take on this exciting opportunity as Head of Release Management, apply now to join a leading organisation in the financial services sector in London