Product Manager

PRODUCT MANAGER - ALPHA PHASE, PUBLIC SECTOR DIGITAL SERVICE Rate: £478/day (Inside IR35) A specialist digital consultancy is looking for an experienced Product Manager to shape the alpha phase of a public-facing guidance tool. The product will help parents and schools understand and manage the complaints process, building on insights from a discovery phase completed earlier this year. This is a hands-on product role within a multidisciplinary agile team, running through to mid-October with potential to extend.

WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING Owning the product vision and roadmap for the alpha phase, translating discovery findings into clear hypotheses to test and validate Defining and prioritising the backlog, making tough calls on what's in and out of scope to deliver meaningful outcomes within the alpha window Working closely with user researchers and designers to ensure the product is grounded in real user needs from parents, schools, and the wider complaints ecosystem Collaborating with the Delivery Manager to balance ambition with pragmatism and keep the team focused Engaging with client stakeholders to align on priorities, manage expectations, and build confidence in the product direction Making evidence-based decisions on which prototypes and concepts to take forward, kill, or iterate on Ensuring the alpha meets GDS service standard assessment criteria and is set up for a strong beta case Communicating the product story clearly to technical and non-technical audiences alike ABOUT YOU Proven experience as a Product Manager on public sector digital services, ideally through alpha or beta phases Strong understanding of GDS service standards and user-centred design principles Comfortable working in multidisciplinary agile teams and making prioritisation decisions under uncertainty Experience translating discovery insights into testable hypotheses and shaping prototypes that validate real user needs Confident engaging senior stakeholders and articulating product decisions with clarity and conviction Familiar with the education, complaints, or public guidance space (nice to have, not essential) Pragmatic and outcomes-focused, you care about solving the right problem, not just shipping features