Agile Coach

Location: Northampton NN4 7SGRate: in-scope IR35 £405 per Day (via a Hays Approved Umbrella Company).Contract Length: 31/12/2026Work Schedule: 2 - 3 days onsite/week, Agile Transformation & Coaching

• Lead the adoption and maturation of Agile practices across multiple teams, ensuring consistent application of Scrum, Kanban, and scaled frameworks.
• Coach teams, Product Owners, and senior stakeholders to internalise Agile mindset, principles, and behaviours.
• Facilitate the development of sprint goals, team charters, definitions of done/ready, and operating rhythms aligned with best practice.
• Identify organisational constraints impacting agility and partner with leadership to remove systemic impediments.

Team Performance & Capability Uplift

• Foster high performing engineering and delivery teams through hands on coaching, mentoring, and continuous skill development.
• Provide expert guidance to resolve complex delivery challenges while ensuring alignment with technology practices, regulatory obligations, and business goals.
• Drive the creation of measurable improvement plans focused on flow, predictability, quality, and customer value.

Continuous Improvement & Innovation

• Identify, design, and implement process improvements to optimise development lifecycle efficiency and effectiveness.
• Stay ahead of industry trends, emerging frameworks, Agile tooling, and modern engineering practices to continuously uplift organisational capability.
• Actively contribute to Agile and technology communities of practice, promoting knowledge-sharing and innovation.

Stakeholder Influence & Collaboration

• Partner with business stakeholders, engineering leaders, and cross-functional teams to ensure alignment between Agile delivery, strategic objectives, risk policies, and regulatory requirements.
• Facilitate workshops, planning events, retrospectives, and Agile ceremonies with clarity, neutrality, and impact.
• Influence decision-making at senior levels using strong negotiation and facilitation skills.

Agile Coach Expectations

• Strategic Leadership & Change Enablement
• Shape and contribute to Agile strategy, change roadmaps, and frameworks that enhance enterprise-wide ways of working.
• Recommend improvements to delivery processes, governance models, and tooling to increase overall agility and effectiveness.
• Ensure continuous improvement initiatives comply with risk, control, and governance requirements.

People Leadership

• Define roles, responsibilities, and future workforce needs aligned to Agile transformation goals.
• Coach, mentor, and develop team members, demonstrating the organisation's LEAD behaviours:
• L - Listen and be authentic
• E - Energise and inspire
• A - Align across the enterprise
• D - Develop others

Individual Contributor Path

• Operate as a subject matter expert in Agile disciplines, influencing multi-year programmes and major transformation initiatives.
• Guide teams through complex problem-solving, integrating insights from research, analytics, and industry benchmarks.
• Coach and mentor less experienced specialists, nurturing the next generation of Agile practitioners.

Risk, Controls & Governance

• Champion strong risk management and control practices within Agile delivery.
• Proactively identify and mitigate risks impacting Agile adoption or delivery outcomes.
• Ensure ways of working comply with organisational, regulatory, and security expectations.

Enterprise Collaboration

• Build strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders to ensure alignment across functions.
• Collaborate across business and technology domains to maintain visibility of strategy, evolving priorities, and dependencies.

• Demonstrable experience transforming teams and organisations through Agile adoption, coaching, and scaled frameworks.
• Prior experience as an Agile Coach operating in large, complex enterprise environments.
• Strong facilitation and negotiation skills at senior and cross-functional levels.
• Experience applying Agile in technology and engineering settings, with the ability to coach on delivery flow, quality, and technical practices.

Highly Valued Skills

• Agile certifications (e.g., CSM, CSP, ICP-ACC, SAFe, LeSS).
• Experience as a Scrum Master or Agile Delivery Lead.
• Technical background or strong understanding of software development practices.
• Experience with large-scale Agile frameworks (SAFe, LeSS, Spotify Model, Nexus).