CONNECT Functional Support Manager - 01

Location: The main location for this role is Newlands Park (SE26 5NF) with requirement to travel across the Met Estate, to attend meetings as required by the business.

Employment: Permanent, Full-Time (36-hours p/w)

"Keep checking Met Careers on a daily basis for new and exciting opportunities being released to join Digital & Innovation!"

Policing London is a hugely complex challenge that evolves every day. To make sure the Met is up to the task, we need the right IT and systems across our organisation. As a CONNECT Functional Support Manager, you will help to enable us to do our best for the London area. Join us and play your part in making London the safest capital in the world and delivering 'More Trust, Less Crime and High Standards'.

As a member of the Met, you will also enjoy great benefits including annual leave, civil service pension arrangements, maternity/paternity support, as well as being part of a continuous learning culture.

Digital & Innovation Business Group

The Digital & Innovation Business Group brings together technology, the effective use of data, and our capability to deliver change and reform to drive the Met forward: this is central to progressing delivery of New Met for London 2. It includes the Met's Transformation, Technology, Data and Analytics functions, as well as work underway to make the organisation more productive and efficient (referred to as Productivity & Efficiency or P&E). The Group was created in early 2026 and is led by Marie Heracleous, Chief Digital & Innovation Officer. It's an exciting time to be part of D&I, as it builds new capabilities and ways of working to support the frontline and make a real difference to London.

D&I is committed to creating an inclusive working environment. We support hybrid working, and the hiring manager will be happy to discuss arrangements for this role.

Job Purpose

• The CONNECT Functional Support Manager supports the ongoing development of the CONNECT solution by providing strong governance, reporting and process improvement support to the Functional Team. This helps ensure CONNECT enhancements are prioritised effectively to meet the changing needs of frontline operational policing.
• With a broad understanding of functional activity, the role identifies and helps mitigate risks, issues and dependencies, while driving process efficiencies that improve delivery capability and service effectiveness.

Key Role Responsibilities

• Produce clear, high-quality reports and briefings (e.g. dashboards, summaries and board papers) to support senior decision-making on CONNECT priorities, investment and delivery.
• Act as the first point of contact for cross-functional queries, triaging requests and directing them to the appropriate Manager or SME, helping the Functional Team focus on value-adding work.
• Drive continuous improvement by capturing lessons learned from releases and supporting changes that improve delivery speed, quality and confidence.
• Manage change requests by validating requirements, assessing impacts and supporting progression through agreed governance.
• Support the development of business cases and proposals by gathering evidence, analysing benefits and challenging assumptions.
• Support assurance and governance activities, including responding to queries, contributing to assessments and tracking actions.
• Plan and coordinate governance forums and boards, preparing agendas and papers, capturing actions and ensuring follow-up.
• Develop and maintain plans and milestones, monitoring progress, highlighting risks and escalating delivery concerns.
• Consolidate inputs from SMEs to provide regular and ad-hoc performance reporting, highlighting progress, risks and blockers.
• Support supplier and vendor management by coordinating information, monitoring delivery and escalating risks or issues., This post requires access to the most sensitive intelligence material on a daily basis. Applicants must hold or be prepared to undergo National Security Vetting (NSV) Security Check (enhanced) (SC(e)) level before taking up the post.

Working Pattern

Hybrid Working available in line with the Metropolitan Police Service hybrid working policy.

The role requires that you attend the Newlands Park office (SE26 5NF) 3-days per week: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between the core hours of 10:00 to 16:00., The Met is committed to being an equitable (fair and impartial) and inclusive employer for disabled people, striving to have a diverse and representative workforce at all levels. We encourage applications from people from the widest possible range of backgrounds, cultures and experiences. We particularly welcome applications from people with disabilities and long-term conditions, ethnic minority groups and women.

As a Disability Confident Leader, the Met has committed to making disability equality part of our everyday practice. We ensure that people with disabilities and those with long term conditions have the opportunities to fulfil their potential and realise their aspirations.

The Met is committed to making reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process to ensure disabled applicants can perform at their best. If you need any reasonable adjustments or changes to the application and recruitment process, we ask that you include this information within your application form. All matters will be treated in strict confidence.

Please note, if you are applying for a police officer role or to become a police community support officer (PCSO) or designated detention officer (DDO), there is a minimum requirement that you must pass a job-related fitness test (JRFT) at point of entry. This does not apply to police staff roles. Find out more about police fitness standards.

Knowledge

• Understanding of the public sector and/or knowledge of operational policing practices.
• Understanding of product strategy, including product/portfolio prioritisation and the product lifecycle (discovery to end-of-life).
• Knowledge of product management and project management processes, such as Water and Agile.
• Knowledge of both product management structures and best practice.
• Awareness of technological transformation projects, i.e., the risks and challenges they experience.
• Understanding of status reporting/dashboard development.
• Knowledge of stakeholder engagement and communication best practices., * Ability to apply effective risk management techniques to identify and mitigate (including terminate) risks that threaten delivery of objectives.
• Ability to guide and monitor products through their lifecycle.
• Ability to design clear status reports and dashboards for Senior Management.
• Ability to engage and influence a range of stakeholders and tailor communications to a diverse workforce.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office.
• Highly organised and proven ability to priorities to deliver to agreed deadlines.
• Proven ability to provide and deliver briefings and presentations.
• Ability to deliver quickly in ambiguous circumstances, carrying out new tasks for the first time with little oversight or specific training.

Experience

• Identified and mitigated risks, keeping delivery within the defined risk appetite.
• Mapped and managed dependencies across teams and suppliers, preventing schedule clashes and resource conflicts.
• Built status dashboards and product analytics; used insights to reprioritise the backlog and retire low-value work.
• Prepared board packs and presented to the relevant governance boards.
• Experience in project management and governance, including preparing meeting materials for senior stakeholders.
• Experience working in a complex organisation with a wide range of stakeholders, with evidence of positively engaging and influencing stakeholders and business decisions where appropriate.

Required Languages English Reports To

The salary is broken down as £45,986 basic salary, which will increase annually until you reach the top of the scale £54,863. Plus, a location allowance of £2,009 and a non-pensionable allowance of £1,000.