Strategic Programme Manager

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.

Responsibilities

• 5+ years driving end-to-end strategic initiatives or business transformation in high-growth, fast-paced technology or scale-up environments.
• You understand how business models work, how operational levers impact the bottom line, and how to evaluate financial unit economics. 
• A track record of evaluating hard trade-offs, prioritising business-wide impact over team silos, and stopping work that doesn't deliver value. 
• You don't wait for permission or perfect information. You walk into chaotic, ambiguous scenarios and rapidly create structure, operational clarity, and momentum.
• Experience in working with product, commercial and marketing teams.
• Demonstrated ability to unpick early dependencies, strip away operational friction, and accelerate team velocity without sacrificing decision quality.
• Track record of managing multiple concurrent programmes of work with overlapping deadlines and competing cross-functional resources.
• Highly comfortable pivoting from plan when the data shows a plan isn't working, and courageous enough to push leadership to change direction. 
• Exceptional ability to build trust across all business layers, using operational context and mutual respect rather than hierarchy to drive accountability.  
• Proven ability to hold your own with VPs and Executive Sponsors, challenging assumptions, pushing back constructively, and keeping alignment tight.
• Expert at distilling complex operational detail into decision-ready executive proposals that clearly highlight choices, risks, and rationale. 
• Traditional PM certifications (PMP/Prince2) are desirable however secondary to proven commercial problem-solving capability.

Requirements

Drive strategic execution & commercial impact

• Lead our most critical strategic programs, driving them end-to-end from concept through to measurable business impact. 
• Accelerate team velocity by stripping away operational blockers, speeding up decision-making, and keeping momentum high without sacrificing quality.
• Unpick complex cross-functional friction, diagnose the actual systemic bottlenecks, and work with business stakeholders to deploy pragmatic solutions that resolve ambiguity for good.  
• Actively investigates dependency details early in the initiative lifecycle to surface hidden blockers, force hard trade-offs, and protect execution timelines.  
• Apply strong critical thinking and business judgment to work with teams to surface and navigate trade-offs based on the intended business outcome.
• Ensure 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.

Lead cross-functional teams & create clarity

• Navigates ambiguity by grounding cross-functional teams in a clear, shared understanding of core business problems.
• Build deep trust across all layers, enabling you to challenge peers constructively, align conflicting priorities, and enforce true cross-functional ownership.  
• Ensure 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.

Executive partnership & alignment

• Ability 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. 
• Prepare and steer formal governance forums (like SteerCos and Leadership team reviews), ensuring monthly touchpoints are focused on meaningful strategic choices rather than status updates. 

Benefits

This 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.

We 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.

We 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.

Our perks include:
25 days holiday per year increasing with length of service, plus bank holidays
Competitive salaries
4pm finishes every Friday
Company pension scheme
Private health insurance (BUPA)
Dental Insurance (BUPA)
Income protection policy
Life assurance policy
Employee Assistance Program
Enhanced parental leave pay
Regular team building activities
£150 pounds towards your home office set up

We 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.