Simplification Programme Director
| Posting date: | 20 March 2026 |
|---|---|
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 19 April 2026 |
| Location: | London, EC2M 4AA |
| Company: | NatWest Group |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | R-00274557 |
Summary
Join us as a Simplification Programme Director
- You’ll be fully accountable for the end to end leadership and delivery of Retail’s multi-year simplification agenda, driving structural cost reduction, operational resilience, and improved customer and colleague outcomes
- The role operates at enterprise scale, shaping strategy, mobilising delivery, and ensuring clear financial ownership, disciplined investment management, and sustained benefits realisation
- This is your opportunity to build and lead a high‑performing programme leadership team, setting clear direction, pace, and accountability
- You'll be required to work in our London office, 250 Bishopsgate a minimum of four days per week
What you'll do
As a Simplification Programme Director, you’ll drive and lead the Retail simplification strategy, aligned to Group priorities, financial plans, and regulatory expectations. You’ll own the investment envelope for the simplification portfolio, ensuring disciplined prioritisation, phasing, and reallocation of funding to maximise return on investment. You’ll also actively lead senior stakeholder engagement across COO, Technology, Data & AI, Finance, Risk, and business leadership to resolve trade‑offs and unblock delivery.
You’ll also be:
- Driving measurable benefits realisation, e.g. cost saves, process reduction, technology decommissioning and automation uplift, with transparent tracking and financial assurance
- Providing single‑point accountability for a portfolio of complex, interdependent programmes delivering cost, complexity, and risk reduction
- Sponsoring and governing the responsible deployment of advanced automation and Agentic AI solutions as part of the simplification agenda, in line with risk, control, and regulatory standards
- Ensuring robust programme governance, financial control, and dependency management, operating within Group delivery, finance, technology, and risk frameworks
The skills you'll need
You’ll need strong commercial and financial acumen, with confidence in cost‑base discussions, investment trade‑offs, and return‑on‑investment optimisation. You’ll also need strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, including constructive challenge at senior levels.
We’ll also expect you to have:
- Experience operating with clear cost and benefit ownership, working closely with Finance to ensure savings are credible, signed off, and embedded into the run‑rate
- Proven track record of delivering material, quantifiable financial outcomes at scale
- Extensive experience delivering enterprise‑wide simplification or transformation programmes within a complex, regulated banking environment
- Strong understanding of bank financials, including cost‑base management, investment planning, capital considerations, and benefits realisation
- A background in leading large‑scale transformation, simplification, or change portfolios
- Strong understanding of operating models, technology landscapes, and end‑to‑end process design, including legacy complexity reduction