Average Release Manager salary in the UK

The Release Management Lead / VP will oversee and coordinate the release management life cycle within the Technology department of a financial services organisation. This role will focus on ensuring seamless delivery and deployment of software and system updates in a fast-paced environment. Client Details The organisation is a well-established player in the Financial Services industry, with a focus on delivering innovative technology solutions. Description Strategic Release Planning & Execution: Own and manage the enterprise-wide release calendar, ensuring alignment with business priorities, regulatory deadlines, and change windows.Lead the planning and execution of major, minor, and emergency releases across multiple platforms and business units.Partner with Product Managers and Engineering Leads to plan, schedule, and coordinate major releases, patches, and hotfixes across multiple interconnected product teams.Require, review, and approve detailed Rollback Plans and communication strategies for every critical release, ensuring swift recovery in the event of failure.Lead regular coordination meetings with development, QA, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and business teams to ensure release readiness, resolve scheduling conflicts and pre-empt deployment risks..Oversee release bridges and provide leadership during out-of-hours deployments and critical cutovers.Manage and lead post live release periods, ensuring issues are captured, prioritised, communicated and plans for remediation are put into place. Governance & Compliance: Ensure all release activities comply with internal controls, audit requirements, and regulatory standards (e.g., SOX, PCI-DSS, GDPR, PRA/FCA).Maintain comprehensive release documentation, including approvals, risk assessments, rollback plans, and post-implementation reviews.Serve as a key point of contact for internal and external audits related to release governance.Enforce segregation of duties, change control policies, and traceability across the release lifecycle. Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement: Act as a central point of coordination for enterprise releases, engaging senior stakeholders, business sponsors, and technology leaders.Chair Release Governance Boards and contribute to Change Advisory Boards (CABs).Provide regular reporting on release performance, risks, and compliance metrics to executive leadership. Continuous Improvement & Tooling: Drive continuous improvement of release processes, automation, and tooling to support Agile, DevOps, and CI/CD practices.Evaluate and support the implementation of enterprise release management tools and frameworks.Foster a culture of accountability, quality, and operational excellence across delivery teams. Miscellaneous Developing skills pertinent to role.Undertaking other reasonable tasks at the discretion of the Head of Section and Group. Profile A successful Release Management Lead / VP should have: Extensive experience in release management, IT operations, or technology delivery, preferably in the banking or financial services sector.Proven experience managing enterprise-scale releases in a regulated financial services environment.Strong knowledge of ITIL, release governance, and change management frameworks.Experience with ITSM tools (e.g., ServiceNow), CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, Azure DevOps), and enterprise architecture platforms.Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.Understanding of regulatory and compliance standards relevant to banking (e.g., DORA, SOX, PCI-DSS, GDPR).Experience with scaled agile frameworks (e.g., SAFe).Knowledge of risk management, audit controls, and change governance in regulated environments in the banking sector.Experience with core banking systems, digital banking platforms, or financial transaction processing. Job Offer Competitive daily rate of £778 a day inside IR35Temporary role offering flexibility and project-based engagement.Opportunity to work within a reputable organisation in the Financial Services industry.London-based role with exposure to innovative technology projects. If you are ready to take the next step in your career as a Release Management Lead / VP, apply today to join a leading team in the Financial Services sector.

The Head of Release Management will oversee and coordinate the release processes for the technology department within the financial services industry. This role is based in London and requires strong expertise in managing technology releases effectively. Client Details The company is a well-established organisation within the financial services industry with a large and professional team. Description Strategy & 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 Gro Profile A 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 methodologies Job Offer Daily 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

Our client, a leader in the defence and security sector, is currently seeking a Release Train Engineer to join their team in Malvern. This permanent role offers a unique opportunity to work with cutting-edge technology alongside some of the brightest minds in the industry. Key Responsibilities: Collaborating and driving cross-team collaboration in the ART, resolving departmental challenges whilst fostering open communication between teams and stakeholdersUnderstanding and managing upstream and downstream dependencies and collaborating with the Product ManagerDriving value-delivery and improving the product through effective use of dataProviding leadership to project teams and acting as a consultant and coach to resolve contingencies and complex issuesAdvocating the adoption of Agile and SAFe practices and tailoring these practices to the organisation's needsManaging program-level coordination, creating timelines, setting milestones, and ensuring the program's overall cost, time, and performanceOrganising and driving SAFe events whilst working with multiple teams collectivelyPlanning short-term development cycles, ART syncs at every stage, demos, workshops, and backlog refinement Job Requirements: Extensive experience of working in a SAFe delivery environmentStrong knowledge or experience of software development within a development environmentAbility to manage stakeholders effectivelyPrevious experience in resolving conflict and coaching Scrum Masters and team coachesProven experience in leading project teams to deliver complex solutions Essential Qualifications: Scaled Agile Framework Certification Benefits: Matched contribution pension scheme with life assuranceGenerous holiday allowance, with the option to purchase additional daysOptions to join Health Cash Plan, Private Medical Insurance and Dental InsuranceEmployee discount portal including personal accident insurance, travel insurance, restaurants, cinema tickets, and much moreProudly supporting the Armed Forces community by honouring the Armed Forces CovenantVolunteering opportunities to help charities and the local community If you are ready to be part of the future and have the experience required, we invite you to apply now to become a key player in our client's dynamic and talented team in Malvern.