Senior Product Owner - FTC

Department: Product

Employment Type: Fixed Term Contract

Location: London

Description

The Digital Team develops and evolves UKTV’s VoD and digital strategy covering U, digital products, pay platforms and partnerships. We are a growing group of multi-disciplined, talented individuals across several different units: Content Curation, Digital Product, and Production and Development. We’re responsible for growing digital audiences, supporting transformative change across UKTV and contributing to UKTV’s long-term profitability.

We are focused on delivering functionality that provides key business and user value.  In addition to delivering change on time and within budget, the team also support the business to define, prioritise and deliver key strategic technical, commercial and operational activities. 

The Digital Products team has responsibility for the strategic road mapping, planning, rollout, and continuous improvement of UKTV’s VoD digital products (U), across a range of platforms including web, iOS, Android, and Connected TV devices. We also support key high value initiatives across the UKTV business, working closely with Ad sales, Commercial, Legal, Operations and Marketing functions.

Purpose of the role It is a truly exciting time to join U as we are embarking on an ambitious multi-year plan to expand U’s position in the UK market. A key component of this expansion is the evolution and iterative user focused development of the U digital proposition.

We are seeking an experienced Senior Product Owner to cover paternity leave providing leadership and continuity across the delivery of the U app on multiple platforms.  The Senior Product Owner sits above the platform-aligned Product Owner squads, offering clear direction and oversight of the Product Owner function to ensure consistent, high-quality product delivery.

This is a hands-on role, combining day to day engagement with the teams.  You will be supporting backlog management, delivery, and decision-making alongside participation in senior stakeholder and leadership discussions. You will be responsible for shaping and maintaining a clear product vision for each quarter that aligns to business objectives, while consistently representing the needs of our customers and ensuring value is delivered at pace.

What we would like you to bring to the role….key experience, knowledge, skills & personal qualities

Experience

• Proven experience as a Product Owner or Product Manager.
•  Proven experience working and delivering product features to market.
• Experience working in agile environments with scrum teams.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Leading and managing a team of Product Owners.

Knowledge

• Strong understanding of Agile delivery and Scrum product lifecycle.
• Knowledge of JIRA, Confluence and flow mapping tools. 
• Knowledge of AVOD and SVOD services is a plus.

Skills & personal qualities

• Ability to lead product strategy sessions and roadmap planning.
• Facilitates coordination between multiple product owners and their respective backlogs.
•  Leadership of the Product Owner function with the Digital Team.
• Technical literacy to be able to engage with the engineering teams and provide credible input and conversation.
• Participates in scaled ceremonies (e.g., Scrum of Scrums).
• Makes high-stakes prioritization decisions.
• Guides release planning and product launch strategies.

What you will get to work on….key outputs and responsibilities of the role

• Own and uphold U’s ambition, mission, goals and objectives supporting the ongoing delivery of the digital product strategy.
• Champion the user at every stage of the decision-making process, ensuring customer needs remain central to product prioritization, delivery and stakeholder communication.
• Work closely with the Head of Digital Products and other member of the Product team to deliver and maintain a clear, prioritized Now, Next and Later roadmap across all platforms.
• Lead, manage and coach a team of skilled Product Owners, ensuring consistent ways of working and collaboration within the team.
• Take accountability for product delivery across all end-user platforms, with direct ownership of one key platform.
• Build, maintain and manage a rolling iterative product roadmap, balancing business priorities, technical dependencies and delivery capacity.
• Actively participate in agile ceremonies, providing clarity, direction, and fast decision-making to enable teams to deliver maximum value.
• Maintain well-prioritised product backlogs, assessing value and sequencing work to support business and user outcomes.
• Collaborate closely with internal stakeholders to support content planning, marketing activity, and commercial initiatives while protecting and enhancing user experience.
• Stay informed on relevant industry developments, digital, CTV, and VoD trends, applying insight pragmatically to product decisions.
• Actively contribute to the wider UKTV product community, sharing knowledge and supporting capability growth.

Hybrid-WorkingAt UKTV, we are working in a hybrid environment with a mixture of home and office working. Getting together in the office as a team and a company gives colleagues an opportunity to build and maintain great relationships, encourages our culture of collaboration and creativity while recognising that colleagues need to have a healthy and happy work-life balance. You’ll agree with your manager the split of time you spend in the office or at home based on the role that you do, how often you come together as a team and your personal preference. 

Diversity & Inclusion CommitmentAt UKTV, our inclusion vision is to truly represent society in our workforce and on-screen, and create a culture of fairness and respect where we champion difference so that every person feels included and empowered to do their best work. We are committed to ensuring a level playing field at UKTV where all employees and job applicants are given equal opportunity, and that we have diverse voices at the table in everything we do. We welcome applications from everyone and we want UKTV to be a place where you can be your authentic self, give your best and develop your career free from discrimination of any kind.