Product Manager (x3) at HMRC, All UK Regional Centres, 6 Months initial, £Contract Rate

3 x Product Managers urgently required.

6 Month initial Contract role working from one of our Regional Centres.

We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us. We offer a great work life balance. You have the opportunity to work at any of our brand-new Regional Centres and to also work remotely. Contracts vary in length dependent upon the project with the possibility to extend.

Your time spent with us short or long term will be invaluable - your skills and expertise are needed to deliver the largest digital and transformation projects in Government. There really couldn’t be a better time to join HMRC for your new contract opportunity!

At HMRC, we are already one of the most digital advanced tax authorities in the world and have one of the largest IT infrastructures and data sources in the UK. With 50 million customers to serve, over 60 thousand colleagues to support, and £600 billion to collect to fund UK Plc, our IT operation is huge! For those who are up to the challenge, we offer unique and unparalleled opportunities to work with some of the newest technologies and make a real, lasting difference.

HMRC is made up of Customer Groups which are working independently towards one common goal. Our role sits within HMRC’s Chief Digital & Information Office (CDIO) Group that deliver in-house solutions for a broad range of technical and operational issues. Our digital delivery centres are hi-tech, state-of-the-art facilities that allow our teams to maximise their capabilities.

About the project:

The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) provides valuations and property advice required to support taxation and benefits across England and Wales. The VOA’s vision is that its customers have confidence in its valuations and advice. As a modern professional organisation with expert and committed people, it acts fairly, consistently, and efficiently.

The NextGen Rating programme (NGR) combines all projects related to modernising Non-Domestic Rating systems, including the replacement of VOA legacy systems (CDB) with the Dynamics/Azure based VOS and also legislated reforms of digital services as part of the NDR Reforms (NDRR) programme, which is a re-design of the relationship between Business Rates payers and the VOA, resulting in more accurate and more frequent calculation of Rateable Value (RV) which is the value calculated by VOA that is subsequently used to determine business rates.

At its core NDRR will deliver new customer centric web services that will facilitate enhanced engagement and data exchange between the VOA and customers, coupled with legislation that will place emphasis on the rate payer to timely notify VOA of property changes. Providing more accurate, timely and complete data that will enable VOA to provide more accurate valuations across the entirety England and Wales.

A Product manager is responsible for facilitating a product team to build and release digital products or features. Product managers understand the business goals, the user needs for the service, and the different options for how to build and scope the digital product according to those needs. Associate product managers at HMRC can make use of multiple learning and development opportunities to develop their product management skills if joining at entry level. Product managers at HMRC follow the government Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) capability framework and career paths.

Responsibilities

You will:

• Engage stakeholders to get buy in for the product vision and roadmap

• Work with a multidisciplinary product delivery team (civil servants or suppliers) with skills such as user research, service design, business analysis, or software engineering to shape the product and build it.

• Work with team members, such as performance analyst and user researchers, to gather user insights and feedback on live products so that they can be iterated and improved.

• Own and maintain a backlog of ‘user stories’ (which describe features and functions a user should be able to do on the product) and prioritise the order in which they will be built and released to users. These should be in line with the goals of the product set by the organisation.

• Participate in, and contribute to the Product management community of practice, whether through taking part in community initiatives, running sessions or talks, or other activities which support other product managers.

Essential Criteria:

• Experience of building and maintaining positive relationships with stakeholders

• Experience of understanding problems within a service, product or process, and finding a positive solution to resolve the issue.

• Able to prioritise work based on what is valuable to do first

• Ability to collaborate with other professions or specialists to solve a problem.

Desirable Criteria:

• Working knowledge of ITIL v4

• Knowledge of user research, service or interaction design, and how to apply them to design better products.