Head of Product Operations - BPL

London, United Kingdom

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Date live: 22/04/2026

Business Area: Product

Area of Expertise: Product Development & Management

Reference Code: JR-0000107595

Contract: Permanent

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Join us as a Head of Product Operations where you’ll own and evolve our product tooling ecosystem, ensuring it enables teams rather than slows them down. You’ll drive adoption, consistency and data quality so decisions are based on trusted, comparable insights. You’ll design and scale simple, effective ways of working, removing unnecessary process and empowering teams to move faster with greater autonomy. You’ll build real-time visibility of the product portfolio, giving leadership a clear, accurate view of performance, capacity and delivery health. Acting as the connective tissue across Product, Engineering, Design and Risk, you’ll surface and resolve blockers before they escalate. We’re looking for someone who doesn’t just manage process, but improves, challenges and removes it where needed to maximise impact.

Essentials Skills / Basic Qualifications:

Proven experience leading Product Operations, including defining prioritisation frameworks and decision-making approaches
Ownership of the product operating model and ways of working across teams
Experience running product and engineering planning cycles end-to-end
Track record of building and maintaining tooling and data infrastructure to support product visibility and strong tool hygiene
Clear ownership of product data, metrics and reporting to enable informed decision-making

Desirable Skills / Preferred Qualifications:

Experience shipping products within fintech or broader technology environments
Exposure to scaling organisations, particularly in fast-growth or scale-up settings
Hands-on experience using AI tools to enhance product development or operations

You may be assessed on the key critical skills relevant for success in role, such as risk and controls, change and transformation, business acumen strategic thinking and digital and technology, as well as job-specific technical skills

This role is based in London.

Barclays’ payments acceptance business provides critical infrastructure to the UK economy, processing billions of pounds of payments annually for both small businesses and domestic and international corporate clients.

In April 2025, we announced a long-term partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to grow and transform the payments acceptance business by broadening the range of services offered, enhancing the experience for both existing and prospective clients. Leveraging extensive client relationships and deep experience of UK payments, we will create an environment of continuous innovation - activated by Brookfield’s global private equity expertise in payments, technology, operational transformation and corporate carve-outs - to ensure the business is strategically positioned for long-term growth.

Barclays will invest approximately £400m in the new business, the majority of which will be incurred during the first three years. Performance-linked incentives will drive greater alignment between the partners, underpinning the long-term commitment to the transformation. Barclays and Brookfield will work to create a standalone entity over time, continuing to use the Barclaycard Payments (BPL) brand and acting as the sole payments acceptance services provider to Barclays’ clients for a minimum of ten years.

For more information on our partnership with Brookfield, please visit Barclays.com.

Purpose of the role

Product Managers are responsible for the leading the strategic focus of the product(s), defining the product vision, market strategy, and competitive analysis. They think about the product's future and how it will evolve over time. They work with various teams, including marketing, engineering, operations, and sales, to ensure everyone is aligned on the product strategy. They use data and market research to inform their decisions and prioritize product features.

Accountabilities

Define Product Strategy: Accountable for defining a product strategy that aligns with business vision, managing capabilities, balancing short-term with long-term goals, ensuring that products meet market demands and drive growth.
Cross functional alignment: Leadership of cross functional relationships, working with various cross-functional teams to ensure alignment of product strategy and goals.
Risk and Control: Accountable for overseeing product risk management, including identification of potential risks, development of strategies to mitigate those risks, and maintenance of alignment between the product management and control functions.
Product Development Lifecycle: Own product development lifecycle, from concept to launch, ensuring efficient processes, on-time delivery, and alignment with E2E customer expectations and experience. – working with product owners to drive change objectives.
Deliver Product Goals and Performance: Deliver clear objectives and key outcomes to steer the product vision and ensure alignment with company’s business goals, financial targets, and strategic vision, driving long-term business success.
Data driven decisions: Monitor product performance through data-driven analysis and insights, regularly assessing progress against objectives and adjusting the strategies as needed to optimise outcomes and maximise value for both business and customer.
Customer-Centric Focus: Drive a customer -first approach across the product vision, ensuring customer insights, feedback, behaviours, and pain points are at the core of the product strategy and decision-making process.
Business and financial acumen: Understanding pricing models, costs structures, and ROI to make financially grounded decisions regarding product development.

Vice President Expectations

To contribute or set strategy, drive requirements and make recommendations for change. Plan resources, budgets, and policies; manage and maintain policies/ processes; deliver continuous improvements and escalate breaches of policies/procedures..
If managing a team, they define jobs and responsibilities, planning for the department’s future needs and operations, counselling employees on performance and contributing to employee pay decisions/changes. They may also lead a number of specialists to influence the operations of a department, in alignment with strategic as well as tactical priorities, while balancing short and long term goals and ensuring that budgets and schedules meet corporate requirements..
If the position has leadership responsibilities, People Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others..
OR for an individual contributor, they will be a subject matter expert within own discipline and will guide technical direction. They will lead collaborative, multi-year assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
Advise key stakeholders, including functional leadership teams and senior management on functional and cross functional areas of impact and alignment.
Manage and mitigate risks through assessment, in support of the control and governance agenda.
Demonstrate leadership and accountability for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work your team does.
Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the organisation functions to contribute to achieving the goals of the business.
Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategies.
Create solutions based on sophisticated analytical thought comparing and selecting complex alternatives. In-depth analysis with interpretative thinking will be required to define problems and develop innovative solutions.
Adopt and include the outcomes of extensive research in problem solving processes.
Seek out, build and maintain trusting relationships and partnerships with internal and external stakeholders in order to accomplish key business objectives, using influencing and negotiating skills to achieve outcomes.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.

More about working at Barclays

Barclays offices across the UK are designed to be places where our people can come together to do their best work, surrounded by excellent facilities for both work and leisure. These are warm, diverse, supportive communities in some of the UK’s best locations, where everyone can thrive.

Our approach to hybrid working ensures there’s the right balance of working alongside colleagues at our onsite locations, as required for each role. For business areas that offer a hybrid working experience, this will be in a structured way, where colleagues work at an onsite location on fixed, ‘anchor’, days of the week. Some roles may require full onsite working. Please discuss the working pattern requirements for the role you are applying for with the hiring manager.

We continue to embed and review our hybrid working environment and remain in a phase of testing and learning. This means that working arrangements could change, with reasonable notice, to align with the needs of our business.

Barclays welcomes applications from all candidates and is committed to ensuring reasonable adjustments (accommodations) are put in place to allow for a fair and inclusive recruitment process. For more information and how to request one, please review Adjustments to the recruitment process.

We’re committed to providing an inclusive culture and environment, that recognises and supports ways to balance your personal needs, alongside the professional needs of our business. Providing the opportunity for all our employees globally to work flexibly empowers each of us to work in a way that suits our lives, as well as enabling us to better service our customers’ and clients’ needs.

Our approach to working flexibly is designed to support you to balance your life and to accommodate diverse needs, whilst still allowing us to meet our business needs. If you’d like to request a flexible working arrangement, please discuss this with your hiring manager.

We're committed to providing a supportive and simplified experience for our candidates throughout the application and assessment process. Here, you will find information about what to expect and some guidance around your assessment and interview.

While the application process depends on the role, there are some constant steps, which are;

Step 1 - Your application
Step 2 - Your assessment
Step 3 - Your interview
Step 4 - Next steps

We aim to create an inclusive work environment where everyone can reach their full potential. If you require any adjustments to our recruitment process, please click here to learn more.

Find out more information here.

Barclays offers a diverse, inclusive and engaged culture. A place where people can bring their whole selves to work and be respected for who they are, valued for what they do and celebrated for their contribution to our business and our community.
We are an equal opportunity employer and opposed to discrimination on any grounds. It is the policy of Barclays to ensure equal employment opportunity without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, colour, creed, religion, national origin, alienage or citizenship status, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or domestic/civil partnership status, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other basis protected by law.

Barclays is required by law to confirm that you have the Legal Right to Work in any role that you apply for. If you currently hold a work visa sponsored by Barclays, or you would require sponsorship from Barclays, you must declare this as part of your application. Sponsored visas are role and entity specific and any changes must be reviewed. It is important that you ensure you are working on the correct visa at all times. Failure to accurately disclose your visa status or Legal Right to Work may result in your application or any employment offer being withdrawn at any time.

The Barclays Way

This is the spirit of Barclays. It’s why we exist, what we believe and how we behave. But most importantly, it’s how we make decisions, take action and get things done.

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