Programme Manager – Medical Support Services (MSS)

Programme Name: LCST

Location: Bristol - Hybrid; frequent engagement with MOD, suppliers, and cross‑functional delivery teams

The Role:

Reports to the Head of Commissioning for line management and the Head of Medical Support Services for task management.

The MSS Programme Manager is accountable for the end‑to‑end delivery, governance, and assurance of complex medical programmes across Medical Support Services. The role acts as the integration point (“fulcrum”) between Defence Medical Services (DMS) customers, delivery partners, and live operations, translating commissioned and DMS‑driven change into executable delivery that is safely embedded into service.

 

This is not a Technical Programme Manager role. The primary focus is operational and business programme management (delivery, governance, integration, and assurance). Technical understanding or experience is advantageous to enable effective challenge, integration, and decision‑making, but the role does not require ownership of detailed technical design or engineering delivery.

 

The role ensures that medical capability, equipment replacement, commissioning activity, and digital or data‑enabled initiatives are delivered on time, to cost, to quality, and in line with contractual, regulatory, and operational constraints, while protecting continuity of medical support to Defence. The role is also expected to actively leverage AI, automation, and data‑driven innovation (including Microsoft Copilot) to drive continuous improvement, efficiency, and smarter delivery.

 

Programme Delivery & Control

• Lead the delivery of multiple concurrent medical projects, programmes, change initiatives, and improvement activities across the MSS portfolio.
• Develop, maintain, and control programme plans, schedules, dependencies, and milestones to ensure predictable delivery.
• Coordinate delivery across multidisciplinary teams (commercial, technical, operational, suppliers), ensuring clarity of roles, responsibilities, and outcomes.
• Chair programme‑level and working‑level delivery forums to drive progress, resolve blockers, and maintain delivery momentum.
• Ensure that commissioned and DMS‑driven changes are successfully transitioned into live operations, delivering intended outcomes beyond approval or contract award.

Governance, Assurance & Change Control

• Operate robust, auditable programme governance in line with the MSS and P3M ways of working, ensuring decisions, scope changes, priorities, and approvals are properly controlled.
• Manage scope, cost, schedule, risk, assumptions, and dependencies against approved baselines.
• Provide clear delivery assurance through structured reporting, performance metrics, and senior‑level briefings.
• Ensure consistency, accuracy, and integrity of programme documentation, plans, and performance data.
• Act as the primary interface between the MSS portfolio and the wider P3M function, ensuring compliance with organisational policy and assurance expectations.

Stakeholder, Customer & DMS Engagement

• Act as a single point of accountability for medical programme delivery and assurance.
• Build and maintain trusted relationships with MOD, DMS, internal delivery teams, and external suppliers.
• Translate operational needs, constraints, risks, and dependencies into clear options and recommendations to support informed decision‑making.
• Manage complex stakeholder landscapes, resolving ambiguity around ownership, accountability, and delivery completion.

Issue Resolution & Operational Protection

• Take ownership of high‑impact, high‑priority delivery issues, driving timely mitigation and resolution.
• Balance delivery of change with protection of live medical operations, ensuring operational impact is understood, managed, and minimised.
• Escalate issues appropriately, presenting clear options, impacts, and recommendations.

Digital, AI, Data & Continuous Improvement

• Utilise AI‑enabled tools and Large Language Models (LLMs) to support document creation, document assurance, requirements development, reporting, and decision support, improving quality, consistency, and speed of delivery.
• Apply AI and automation pragmatically to reduce manual effort in programme controls, governance artefacts, and assurance activity.
• Use data, dashboards, and analytics (e.g. Power BI) to improve programme visibility, performance management, and insight.
• Support the introduction of digital or data‑driven solutions, ensuring alignment with security, assurance, and operational constraints.
• Drive continuous improvement through identification of systemic issues, lessons learned, and innovative ways of working.
• Contribute to capability, capacity, and resource planning to support forecast delivery demand.

What does Leidos need from me?

• ​Proven experience delivering complex, multi‑stakeholder and customer facing programmes in regulated environments.
• Strong programme management, governance, and delivery assurance capability.
• Strong commercial and contractual awareness, able to shape proposals and engage credibly with customers and suppliers on scope, value, risk, and commercial terms.
• Demonstrated ability to manage risk, dependencies, competing priorities, and delivery under pressure.
• Hands‑on experience using AI tools, automation, and digital solutions to drive operational or programme improvement.
• Experience with Microsoft Copilot and/or equivalent AI productivity tools, using them to improve efficiency, insight, or decision‑making.
• Strong data and reporting capability, including experience using Power BI or equivalent analytics tools.
• Experience leading or contributing to process improvement initiatives, including simplification and automation.
• Confident communicator, able to engage credibly with senior customers, stakeholders, and delivery teams.
• Strong analytical and organisational skills, with attention to detail and data integrity.

Desirable

• Experience in healthcare, medical services, life sciences, or other regulated delivery environments.
• Experience operating within public sector or defence customer‑supplier delivery models.
• Exposure to digital transformation or technology‑enabled delivery.
• Technical literacy (ability to understand, question, and integrate technical solutions) without ownership of technical design or engineering delivery.

The successful applicant should be:

• Delivery‑focused, structured, and outcome‑oriented. 
• Curious and improvement‑minded, with a strong interest in innovation and smarter ways of working. 
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and resolving complex delivery challenges. 
• Calm, credible, and authoritative under pressure. 
• Pragmatic and collaborative.

Essential / Strongly Preferred 

• Recognised Programme or Project Management qualification (e.g. APM PMQ, MSP, or equivalent). 
• Continuous improvement qualification (e.g. Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or equivalent). 
• Change management qualification (e.g. APMG‑aligned or equivalent). 

What we do for you:
At Leidos we are PASSIONATE about customer success, UNITED as a team and INSPIRED to make a difference. We offer meaningful and engaging careers, a collaborative culture, and support for your career goals, all while nurturing a healthy work-life balance.
We provide an employment package that attracts, develops and retains only the best in talent. Our reward scheme includes:
•    Contributory Pension Scheme
•    Private Medical Insurance
•    33 days Annual Leave (including public and privilege holidays)
•    Access to Flexible benefits (including life assurance, health schemes, gym memberships, annual buy and sell holidays and a cycle to work scheme)

•    Flexi-Time Working

Commitment to Diversity:

We welcome applications from every part of the community and are committed to a truly diverse and inclusive culture.  We foster a sense of belonging, welcoming all perspectives and contributions, and providing equal access to opportunities and resources for everyone.  If you have a disability or need any reasonable adjustments during the application and selection stages please let us know, and we will respond in a way that best fits your needs.

Who We Are:

The Logistics Commodities & Services Transformation (LCST) Programme for the UK Ministry of Defence is a critical effort to enhance and improve the UK’s defence supply chain. The programme provides essential services such as storage and distribution for the MOD's materiel, including a global freight service and the procurement and inventory management of 70,000 commodity NATO Stock Number (NSNs).

Working together as Team Leidos we are helping to transform the UK's defence supply chain by providing an integration of a complex mixture of services, at low risk, using a modern suite of systems that will deliver one version of the truth. For the first time, the MOD will see the whole picture, as it is happening.

What Makes Us Different:

Purpose: you can use your passion and abilities at Leidos to keep the people you care about safe. We are at the forefront of machine learning, AI, cyber security and solutions. Using your skills in the technology frontline by helping to build a safer world.  You can inspire change.

Collaboration: having flexibility to do your job is one of our core benefits, enabling you to become part of our extraordinary team.  We have been empowering our people to work flexibly for years.  Whether you work from home, the office or on customer sites, we will give you the digital tools and the flexibility to work smarter and align your needs and ours.          

People: Leidos empowers people from every background to be themselves and gives you the tools to learn new skills by enabling growth whilst developing. We believe that extraordinary people need opportunities to grow, to be inspired and to inspire others. At Leidos, we invest in technical academies, career rotations and a career development plans that enhance your future.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

Pay Range:

£58,400.00-£74,900.00

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.