Discovery Pipeline Manager

Role: Discovery Pipeline Manager - Defence AI

Location: London (up to 1 day per week on site - Tuesday)

Contract: Until 31.03.2027, with potential extension

IR35: In scope

Day rate: £450 - 466 (umbrella)

This is a strategic role at the heart of the Defence AI portfolio, owning the end-to-end Discovery Pathway and ensuring that AI demand across Defence is captured, structured, and converted into clear, decision-ready opportunities that genuinely support war‑fighter needs and wider strategic outcomes.

What you would be leading

• Owning a single, authoritative pipeline of AI opportunities and requests across Defence.
• Ensuring all demand is captured, tracked and aligned to agreed prioritisation frameworks.
• Providing transparent reporting on pipeline health, volume and flow into prioritisation, commissioning and delivery.
• Designing and operating structured intake, triage and prioritisation processes in line with team operating procedures.
• Translating fragmented or ambiguous demand into coherent themes and clear problem statements.
• Reducing low‑value, duplicative or mis‑routed requests entering the pipeline.
• Leading continuous improvement of the Discovery Pathway, with clear entry criteria and robust discovery outputs.
• Managing hand‑offs from discovery into prioritisation, commissioning and delivery so that problems entering delivery are well‑defined and evidence‑based.

What our client is looking for

• Active SC Clearance strongly prefffered.
• Proven experience in pipeline, portfolio or demand management within complex organisations.
• Track record of designing and running structured intake and discovery processes.
• Ability to convert ambiguous or fragmented demand into clear, decision‑ready problem statements.
• Experience working across engagement, insight and delivery functions.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, including interaction with senior leaders.
• Confidence applying prioritisation frameworks and supporting evidence‑based decision‑making.
• Awareness of AI and its applications is desirable, but not expected to be in‑depth.

Why this could be interesting for you

• Direct influence on how AI demand is shaped and prioritised across Defence.
• High‑visibility role interfacing with senior stakeholders, shaping a growing and strategically critical portfolio.
• Long‑term contract with stability through to at least March 2027, plus extension potential.
• Hybrid working with limited on‑site requirement (maximum one day per week in London).

Inclusive hiring

Our client participates in disability‑confident and armed forces covenant schemes. If you qualify for a guaranteed interview scheme, please mention this when you reply so it can be clearly highlighted in the process.