Product Manager - A Fairer Start - 2 year Fixed Term Contract

We are recruiting a Product Manager to be embedded in our Fairer Start mission

About the Fairer Start mission

We want every child to have the fairest possible start in life, so they can thrive and realise their potential.

Children born into disadvantage are far more likely to experience poor health, lower earnings, shorter life expectancy and lower levels of happiness than their peers. Closing the gap through targeted support at crucial moments of development is not just good policy, it is good economics: such interventions and system shifts are easily paid for by the long-term benefits of higher economic productivity and lower social costs.

The Fairer Start mission works to develop innovative, scalable solutions to the factors that prevent children from disadvantaged backgrounds from thriving. We work on a range of projects, from applied innovation through to policy design, across the domains of parenting support, early childhood education and care, family income, integrated family support and funding.

The role

As a Product Manager you will strategically deliver and de-risk the scaling of priority digital products and services in the Fairer Start mission as they mature beyond early validation. You will ensure they have an outcome-focused strategy and roadmap to scale user and stakeholder value and mission impact, and will lead and manage multidisciplinary teams to use lean-agile principles, user-centered design, and data to iteratively improve solutions. You may also discover and validate new solutions, help others grow lean-agile capabilities, and where appropriate support Nesta’s wider work.

• Strategically deliver and de-risk the scaling of priority digital products and services as they mature beyond early validation to ensure sustained mission impact.
• Develop outcome-focused strategies and roadmaps that align user value with mission goals and long-term sustainability.
• Manage the full product lifecycle, from scaling and ongoing maintenance through to strategic retirement or spin-out.
• Lead multidisciplinary teams (e.g. design, data science, engineering, domain experts) to use live data and ongoing discovery to focus iteration toward increasing impact, and resolve roadblocks as needed.
• Embed lean-agile principles to ensure teams release working solutions quickly and often, learning from real-world feedback and data to improve value.
• Cultivate relationships with delivery partners and key stakeholders to support the widespread adoption and impact of products and services.
• Translate complex user needs into concrete requirements and realistic release plans that match team capacity.
• Identify new digital opportunities and occasionally undertake discovery to validate new solutions when mission needs evolve.

Support capability building through facilitating learning opportunities within a community of people interested or involved in product-related work.

The person

Essential

• Strategic product scaling: Experience leading digital products and services through the transition from validation to sustained impact, with a focus on de-risking growth and navigating the complexities of scaling whilst ensuring stable and secure service delivery.
• Iterative development and testing: Experience using lean-agile principles and using live data and ongoing discovery to focus product iterations toward increasing the impact and scale of existing solutions.
• User focus: You have experience supporting multidisciplinary teams to develop digital products and services that meet the needs of users and stakeholders, as well as having the desired business and/or social impact; including helping them to uncover and understand user and stakeholder needs through user research and testing.
• Outcome-focused planning: Ability to translate user needs and mission goals into strategic roadmaps and realistic release plans that account for team capacity and operational constraints.
• Multidisciplinary leadership: Experience leading multidisciplinary teams through the product lifecycle, aligning around strategic choices, establishing routines for releasing working solutions quickly to learn and improve, facilitating decisions and resolving roadblocks.
• Stakeholder & partner management: Skilled at building relationships with delivery partners and technical/non-technical stakeholders to support progress and impact.
• Lifecycle management: Experience managing products at various stages of maturity through to retirement.

Desirable

• Hands-on prototyping: Comfortable using code or no-code/low-code tools to quickly validate new solutions when mission needs evolve.
• Social impact focus: Experience developing digital products and services specifically designed for social impact or mission-driven outcomes (specifically early years), including navigating ethical considerations and the needs of more disadvantaged users.
• Design skills: Familiar with design disciplines (like UX design and service design) and are able to apply some of the mindsets and tools.

What we offer

Salary: circa £58,500 plus array of benefits, including up to 12% employer pension contributions, Private Medical Insurance , dental insurance, the ability to buy and sell annual leave, and more

Location: Blackfriars, Central London - hybrid working arrangement, with a minimum of two days working from the office.

Term: 2 year fixed-term

Hours: This is a full-time role but we offer a range of flexible working arrangements and encourage our people to take advantage of them. Many do.

Reports to: Product Lead, Design & Technology.

Making an application

To apply for this role, please submit your application before 25th November 2026

Round 1 interviews are expected to take place w/c 7 December 2026, and Round 2 interviews (including a presentation) on 14 December 2026

At Nesta, we believe that a diverse workforce leads to an organisation that is more innovative, more creative and gets better results.

We want our workforce to represent the diversity of the people and communities we serve. We also want our workplace to be one where different experiences, expertise and perspectives are valued, and where everyone is encouraged to grow and develop.

This means that when we are recruiting, we actively seek to reach a diverse pool of candidates. It also means that we are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that potential employees may need to in order to be successful.

We recognise the importance of a good balance between work and home life, so we do everything we can to accommodate flexible working, including working from home, compressed or part-time hours, job shares and other arrangements.

Please just let us know in your application or at any stage throughout the process (and beyond) if these are options you’d like to explore.