{"id":3296298,"url":"https://alion.io/job/unidays-strategic-programme-manager","title":"Strategic Programme Manager","company":{"id":1755798,"name":"UNiDAYS","domain":"myunidays.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/myunidays-com","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"HiBob","truth_index":null},"role":"Management","role_family":"Management","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["London, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":49000,"max_usd":108000,"period":"year","method":"role_country_seniority_unknown","sample_n":882},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-26T16:54:12Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-26","last_verified_at":"2026-10-30T10:53:42Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":3,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":3},"description":"We are looking for an ambitious, high-agency, hands-on Strategic Programme Manager to drive critical growth initiatives across the business. This isn't a traditional project management role focused on tracking timelines and updating dashboards. We need a fast-paced, action-oriented operator with sharp commercial acumen and sound business judgment to lead large scale, cross-functional strategic initiatives.In a fast-paced environment with competing priorities, you excel at driving rapid decisions at the right level and balancing trade-offs to put company goals above team silos. Building strong relationships at every layer allows you to challenge constructively, influence effectively, and deeply understand the operational realities of the teams you work with-fostering genuine cross-functional ownership and accountability. You thrive in ambiguity, and boldly push the business to pivot when a plan isn't delivering results.\nResponsibilities\n5+ years driving end-to-end strategic initiatives or business transformation in high-growth, fast-paced technology or scale-up environments.\nYou understand how business models work, how operational levers impact the bottom line, and how to evaluate financial unit economics. \nA track record of evaluating hard trade-offs, prioritising business-wide impact over team silos, and stopping work that doesn't deliver value. \nYou don't wait for permission or perfect information. You walk into chaotic, ambiguous scenarios and rapidly create structure, operational clarity, and momentum.\nExperience in working with product, commercial and marketing teams.\nDemonstrated ability to unpick early dependencies, strip away operational friction, and accelerate team velocity without sacrificing decision quality.\nTrack record of managing multiple concurrent programmes of work with overlapping deadlines and competing cross-functional resources.\nHighly comfortable pivoting from plan when the data shows a plan isn't working, and courageous enough to push leadership to change direction. \nExceptional ability to build trust across all business layers, using operational context and mutual respect rather than hierarchy to drive accountability. \nProven ability to hold your own with VPs and Executive Sponsors, challenging assumptions, pushing back constructively, and keeping alignment tight.\nExpert at distilling complex operational detail into decision-ready executive proposals that clearly highlight choices, risks, and rationale. \nTraditional PM certifications (PMP/Prince2) are desirable however secondary to proven commercial problem-solving capability.\nRequirements\nDrive strategic execution & commercial impactLead our most critical strategic programs, driving them end-to-end from concept through to measurable business impact. \nAccelerate team velocity by stripping away operational blockers, speeding up decision-making, and keeping momentum high without sacrificing quality.\nUnpick complex cross-functional friction, diagnose the actual systemic bottlenecks, and work with business stakeholders to deploy pragmatic solutions that resolve ambiguity for good. \nActively investigates dependency details early in the initiative lifecycle to surface hidden blockers, force hard trade-offs, and protect execution timelines. \nApply strong critical thinking and business judgment to work with teams to surface and navigate trade-offs based on the intended business outcome.\nEnsure decisions are made fast and at the right level with solid business logic, escalating to Senior Leadership strictly as a last resort. Surface choices clearly by bringing well-structured proposals to the table, complete with commercial rationale, evaluated risks, and clear issue mitigations, so that leadership can decide quickly and progress.\nLead cross-functional teams & create clarity\nNavigates ambiguity by grounding cross-functional teams in a clear, shared understanding of core business problems.\nBuild deep trust across all layers, enabling you to challenge peers constructively, align conflicting priorities, and enforce true cross-functional ownership. \nEnsure operational readiness across receiving business teams, ensuring operating models and workflows are considered early, so any changes transition smoothly into sustainable, business-as-usual operations.\nExecutive partnership & alignment\nAbility to build deep alignment and trust with Executive Sponsors. You operate seamlessly with leadership meaning you can push decisions forward, and keep project momentum burning without needing them in every room. \nPrepare and steer formal governance forums (like SteerCos and Leadership team reviews), ensuring monthly touchpoints are focused on meaningful strategic choices rather than status updates. \nBenefits\nThis is your opportunity to Join the world’s largest student verification network and help shape the future of how brands connect with the next generation. We engage a community of 23M+ verified students and graduates across 115 markets, making us a truly global platform. Our brand is a powerhouse in the UK, and we’re rapidly accelerating our presence worldwide-especially in the US, Germany, India, France, Canada, and Australia.We partner with 850+ of the world’s biggest brands, bringing their products and services to the hearts and minds of tomorrow’s professionals-driving engagement, building affinity, and delivering real results.\nWe offer a fast-paced, fun, and social working environment where you can truly make an impact. We believe work should enhance and complement your life, which is why we provide a hybrid working model. You will work together in person a minimum of 2 days per week and work from home for up to 3 days a week.\nWe work hard at UNiDAYS, and we believe in fair compensation for that hard work. That’s why we’re proud to offer all employees full access to our comprehensive benefits package.\nOur perks include:\n25 days holiday per year increasing with length of service, plus bank holidays\nCompetitive salaries\n4pm finishes every Friday\nCompany pension scheme\nPrivate health insurance (BUPA)\nDental Insurance (BUPA)\nIncome protection policy\nLife assurance policy\nEmployee Assistance Program\nEnhanced parental leave pay\nRegular team building activities\n£150 pounds towards your home office set up\nWe are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability status.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6512,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Dental insurance","Health insurance","Home office","Hybrid work","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Coupons, Deals & Cashbacks"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-26T21:59:36Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"GB","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"Licensed UK visa sponsor (Skilled Worker, Senior or Specialist Worker)","filings_12m":null,"filings_prev_12m":null,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Skilled Worker; Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker","cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-30T06:20:16+00:00","sources":["UK Home Office: register of licensed sponsors (workers)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":3,"expected_fill_days":27,"reasons":["conf:3","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-30T05:48:23Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/unidays-strategic-programme-manager","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/unidays-strategic-programme-manager.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-30T14:54:03Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":2445,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-31T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1755798},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1755798"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Funidays-strategic-programme-manager"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Funidays-strategic-programme-manager"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Funidays-strategic-programme-manager"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/unidays-strategic-programme-manager\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Funidays-strategic-programme-manager"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3296298}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"myunidays.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3296298},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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