Senior Partnerships Manager

• Employment type: Full time

• Reporting to: VP of Delivery

• Visa sponsorship: UK national or visa holder preferred, but not a dealbreaker

• Salary: £65,000 - £75,000

• Location / working pattern: Hybrid, London - 3 days a week in office

• Background checks: Due to the non-partisan nature of the work we do with global governments and partners, all employees need to pass background checks, verifying your identity, education (if relevant), work history, sanctions, criminal record, adverse financial history, and right to work. To ensure we maintain high standards of political neutrality, we also perform media and social media checks.

About Apolitical

Apolitical's mission is to make governments smarter for people and the planet and we reach over 40 million public servants through our partnerships with governments globally. We are the largest global network for governments, used by 500,000+ public servants in 170 countries to find and share best practices and gain skills on critical topics from AI to climate change to emerging technologies.

Governments use Apolitical to solve public sector transformation challenges from AI augmentation to reskilling. We offer governments five interoperable components: research and analysis, workforce productivity tools, customisable training, vibrant learning communities and high impact convenings. Everything we do is powered by our unique global network and real-time data.

Apolitical is trusted by 60+ governments and leading organisations that work with governments. Governments include schools of government, departments, ministries and government adjacent bodies in the UK, Canada, India, EU, UAE, Brazil, Ethiopia, Singapore and more. Global foundation partners include the Bezos Earth Fund, Gates Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation, who view governments as key stakeholders in achieving systemic change.

Apolitical’s corporate partners include organisations such as Google, AWS and Microsoft who work with us at scale with governments and public sector bodies worldwide.

Our flagship AI platform, Futura, helps governments identify where AI can make a difference and equips public servants with personalised learning to put it into practice. PolicyNova and PolicyNavigator support evidence-based policy research, while our Government AI Campus and Frontier Science & Tech and Resilience Platforms provide practical learning to help public servants respond to emerging challenges.

The Role

Apolitical is growing the scale and depth of its partnerships with governments, foundations and corporates. Our priority is to deliver what we commit to on our most complex partnerships and turn that delivery into renewals and referrals.

Our partnerships range from government capability programmes to foundation-funded initiatives and corporate partnerships delivered with public sector bodies. Each involves complex contracts, senior stakeholders and work that spans several of our teams.

As a Senior Partnerships Manager, you will take ownership of a portfolio of strategic partnerships with existing partners, from contract through delivery, evaluation and renewal. Your immediate mandate is to take on live accounts in delivery and give partners and our teams a clear plan and a single point of leadership.

This is a senior, hands-on individual contributor role in a small team of Senior Partnerships Managers within Partnerships and Delivery. You will work alongside the commercial partnerships lead on each account and closely with Product to deliver work that partners value and renew.

You will:

• Lead strategic partnerships – own day-to-day account leadership for your portfolio, building trusted relationships with senior partner stakeholders and handling complex or sensitive conversations.

• Deliver complex contracts – turn contracts, partner needs and commercial commitments into clear plans, milestones, owners and decisions, and coordinate our teams to deliver them.

• Protect scope and value – reshape partner requests where needed, balancing what partners ask for with agreed scope, commercial terms and delivery capacity.

• Grow existing accounts – build account plans with the commercial partnerships lead and contribute to renewals, upsells and referrals, bringing in Product or senior leadership when a partner's needs outgrow the original agreement.

• Evidence impact – oversee evaluation and reporting for your partnerships, using qualitative and quantitative evidence to show partners what changed and what should happen next.

• Improve how we deliver – feed partner insight into Product and other teams, and help raise the standard of account management across Partnerships and Delivery.

Onboarding Milestones

Within your first month, you'll:

• Develop a clear understanding of our products, partnership model and the systems we use for delivery, commercial work and evaluation.

• Assess the history, commitments, risks and opportunities in the accounts you take on.

• Establish relationships with your partner counterparts and working rhythms with the teams that deliver your accounts.

Within three months, you'll:

• Be leading end-to-end delivery on major projects, coordinating several teams and senior partner stakeholders.

• Have developed account plans with the commercial partnerships lead covering delivery milestones, stakeholder priorities, risks and renewal potential.

• Be feeding regular, specific partner insight into Product and other teams.

Within six months, you'll:

• Have contributed to renewals, upsells or referrals on your accounts.

• Be trusted to bring clarity to complex partner situations and to decide when to escalate, reshape or drive work forward.

• Have embedded improvements in how Partnerships and Delivery plans, runs and reports on its accounts.

Ongoing

Success in this role is measured by the strength of your partner relationships, the delivery outcomes on your accounts, the renewals and referrals they generate, and the improvements you embed in how we deliver and manage strategic partnerships.

About you

You will have experience running complex, multi-stakeholder work over time, such as a programme, service, partnership or major account, with the judgement that comes from seeing it through well beyond launch.

You'll thrive here if you:

• Build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders and handle difficult conversations with warmth, confidence and judgement.

• Make complex, multi-team projects run smoothly, turning shifting priorities into clear plans and decisions.

• Bring commercial instinct, spotting where work could be bigger or more valuable and knowing when to involve the commercial partnerships lead.

• Absorb a lot of information quickly and turn it into a clear recommendation or narrative.

• Are comfortable using data and evaluation evidence to show impact and improve delivery.

• Adapt your approach across governments, foundations, corporates and internal teams, and use AI tools to work faster and better.

• Are motivated by helping governments work better for people and the planet.

Show us in your CV if you have:

• Experience delivering programmes or partnerships with governments or public sector bodies.

• Experience managing partnerships with philanthropic foundations or corporate partners.

• Experience overseeing evaluation or impact reporting for a programme or service.

Don't meet every requirement? Studies show that women and people of colour are less likely to apply for roles unless they meet every qualification. We're committed to building a diverse and inclusive team, so if you're interested in the role but don't tick every box, we'd still encourage you to apply.

This probably isn't the role for you if…

• You're seeking a role focused on new business sales, as this role leads delivery and growth with existing partners.

• You prefer to work within one specialism, as this role switches constantly between partners, teams and types of work.

• You need a fully defined process or scope before making progress, as our processes are evolving and you'll be expected to shape them.

Our application process

We use skills-based assessments and structured interviews to focus on what predicts success in the role. Each stage is designed to give us high-quality evidence of your skills, judgement and ways of working, while giving you a clear view of the role, the team and what working at Apolitical is like.

You can see more about the stages of our hiring process on our careers page.

You can expect to hear from us, no matter the outcome, by 18th November 2026.

Using AI in your application

We embrace new technologies and encourage the use of AI in our work.

You're welcome to use AI tools to help structure and refine your application. What matters to us, though, is understanding your thinking, experience and perspective, so please make sure your application still sounds like you.