Product Manager

Fixed Term / Secondment opportunity, 12 months (with scope for extension)

Full Time, 37 hours per week

£51,770 to £60,905 per annum

Location: Chelmsford

Closing Date: 26th July 2026

Please note this vacancy is available as a fixed term contract or secondment opportunity for up to 12 months, with the possibility of being extended to 24 months, subject to funding availability.

The Opportunity

Essex County Council is bold in its ambition. By 2030, we aim to be one of the most forward‑looking, effective and financially sustainable councils in the country. We’re building a leading‑edge digital council that delivers outstanding customer service, with transformation and innovation at the heart of how we work.

Our Product and Delivery team will shape the future of Essex County Council. They’ll set a bold product vision and turn it into clear, prioritised roadmaps — planning and managing every phase of the delivery lifecycle, and continually evolving products to meet real user needs. The team will set high standards for quality, ensuring products are built effectively, delivered on time and within budget.

This role is in the resident facing services product team and plays a vital part in delivering high‑quality products that create real value. You’ll define and deliver a compelling product roadmap that supports our vision, achieves business objectives and meets user needs — managing your products through every stage of the lifecycle and championing excellence at every step.

To read more about our business area, please visit: Corporate Services

Accountabilities

Lead a multidisciplinary product team to prototype, build and run less complex lower risk products and services, creating product vision and strategies that recognise nuance and interdependence between services to ensure consistency and alignment across the organisation.
Act as champion for one or more products or services, creating and delivering product roadmaps to achieve a vision that enables the product to deliver business objectives.
Translate user needs and business requirements into technical requirements and own the definition and prioritisation them to achieve business objectives.
Use Agile methodology and apply an agile mindset to all aspects of working, creating a fast-paced, evolving environment and use an iterative method and flexible approach to enable rapid delivery.
Build and execute backlogs of work; iterate services based on data; run services economically with the user in mind; ensuring services are accessible, intuitive and simple.
Measure value and use qualitative and quantitative data to inform product development decisions, including new platforms that might be used for multiple services. Translate the vision into prioritised, deliverable goals. Take considered, data-driven decisions and track and monitor product performance and user outcomes to iterate and improve on features.
Use a range of product principles, techniques, and approaches. Discover, define, and validate problems presented by user insight, stakeholder priorities, organisational strategy, and technical needs to ensure the application of best practice in product and service design.
Look across the Council to find common points in what our residents need from us, and opportunities for products and platforms to fill those gaps. Work across channels to ensure that assisted digital needs are well catered for and journeys are smooth.
Engage in meaningful interactions and relationships with users and engage with senior leaders across the organisation to help them understand product development and thinking, and to help them articulate the possibilities in their area for digital transformation.
Contribute to the development and selection of appropriate standards, methods and tools and ensure they are applied effectively and that all work is documented using the appropriate standards, methods and tools.
Specific individual and shared targets and objectives are defined annually within the performance management framework.

The Experience You Will Bring

Educated to degree level in relevant subject or equivalent by experience.
Experience of delivering digital projects and products/prototypes within a complex and diverse context.
Evidence of delivering and using agile methods balancing multiple priorities, dealing with ambiguity and evidencing impact.
Experience of persuading others that a product is the right one, integrating a product with other services and building business cases based on user needs.
Understand when to move from one stage of a product life cycle to another and can manage delivery of products and services at different phases.
Knowledge and practical application of the Government Service Standards, Government Accessibility Regulations, Technology Code of Practise and Information Governance principles and an understanding of how these can apply to ECC.
Experience of identifying, communicating, and working within constraints.
Excellent communication skills with an ability to influence and motivate teams and partners.
Good understanding of the importance of User Centred Design and delivering products that meet user needs.
Evidence of continuing professional development and expert knowledge in relevant professional area.

Why Essex?

As one of the largest and most dynamic UK local authorities, Essex offers a stimulating public service environment. Covering over 1,420 square miles and serving 1.8 million residents, we’re committed to transformational change and delivering better quality at lower cost. Recognised in the top three of the latest IMPOWER index for productivity, we ensure everyone matters in Everyone's Essex. With flexible working options and a focus on innovation, whether you are looking to develop your career or contribute to the local community, Essex is the ideal place for you.

In March 2026, the Government announced that councils in Greater Essex will be reorganised into five new unitary authorities from April 2028. In addition to this, Greater Essex has been accepted on to the devolution priority programme, where we will work towards establishing a Mayoral Combined County Authority. You can read more about these changes, and what this may mean for this role, on our careers site.

Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We’re committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Please speak to our Recruiters if you require any reasonable adjustments during the process. We’re also committed to interview all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.

Once you’ve secured your role within Essex County Council you will receive many great employee benefits, including support for unpaid carers and flexible working arrangements to accommodate their needs.

At Essex County Council, we value integrity and ethical behaviour. We kindly ask that you embrace our code of conduct and the Nolan principles, including throughout the recruitment process. Your commitment to these standards helps us maintain a positive and respectful workplace for everyone.

As part of employment with Essex County Council (ECC) should your role require a DBS check you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription, and you will be responsible for ensuring this is maintained. For further information on the DBS update service please go to https://www.gov.uk/dbs-update-service

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

If you would like to be kept up to date on other relevant opportunities, blogs, news, events and industry related news at Essex County Council, please join The Essex Talent Community

If you have queries on this role or require anything further, please email resourcing.team@essex.gov.uk

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Product Manager

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