Senior Scrum Master SFIA 5

Scrum Master (SFIA Level 5)

Location: Remote (with ad hoc travel as required)

Rate: -500 per day inside IR35
Contract Length: Initial 4-month discovery phase, transitioning into a long-term engagement with rolling 6-month Statements of Work
Clearance: BPSS required
Equipment: Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

Role Purpose

We are seeking an experienced Senior Scrum Master / Agile Delivery Lead to drive Agile delivery across one or more squads within HMRC programmes.

This role is responsible for ensuring effective Scrum practices, enhancing team performance, and delivering against programme objectives. You will act as a servant leader and coach, fostering continuous improvement and increasing delivery maturity while influencing delivery approaches at a programme level.

Core Responsibilities

1. Agile Delivery Leadership

• Lead end-to-end Agile delivery across one or more Scrum teams
• Ensure delivery aligns with programme objectives, milestones, and outcomes
• Support delivery across multiple workstreams and/or complex services
• Operate at programme level to influence delivery strategy and execution

1. Scrum Facilitation

• Facilitate all core Scrum ceremonies, including:
• Daily stand-ups
• Sprint planning
• Backlog refinement
• Sprint reviews
• Retrospectives
• Maintain team cadence, focus, and predictability of delivery
• Ensure Agile best practices are consistently applied

1. Coaching & Mentoring

• Coach teams in:
• Scrum principles and Agile ways of working
• Self-organisation, ownership, and accountability
• Support Product Owners to:
• Prioritise backlogs effectively
• Maximise value delivery
• Drive continuous improvement in team maturity and Agile capability

1. Stakeholder & Governance Management

• Collaborate with Delivery Managers, Product Managers, Architects, and SMEs
• Provide regular updates on:
• Progress
• Risks
• Blockers
• Dependencies
• Ensure alignment with governance, reporting, and assurance frameworks (HMRC/GDS standards)
• Influence stakeholders at both team and programme levels

1. Removing Impediments

• Identify and remove delivery blockers and inefficiencies
• Drive improvements in:
• Team velocity
• Collaboration
• Quality of delivery
• Enable teams to operate autonomously and effectively

1. Delivery Tooling & Reporting

• Manage Agile tooling (e.g., Jira, Confluence, Azure DevOps)
• Track and report on:
• Sprint progress
• Burn-down charts and velocity metrics
• Ensure transparency and visibility of delivery across stakeholders

Key Skills & Experience

Essential

• Proven experience operating at SFIA Level 5 (Senior Scrum Master / Delivery Manager)
• Strong background in Agile methodologies, including:
• Scrum
• Kanban
• SAFe or other scaled Agile frameworks
• Demonstrable experience leading:
• Cross-functional delivery teams within complex programmes

• Excellent stakeholder engagement and management skills
• Strong coaching, mentoring, and facilitation abilities
• Skilled in conflict resolution and team dynamics
• Ability to operate effectively at both team and programme levels

Technical & Domain Experience

• Hands-on experience with Agile tooling (Jira, Confluence, Azure DevOps)
• Prior delivery experience within:
• HMRC
• UK Government
• GDS (Government Digital Service) environments