Katie Scott
Product Manager

Describe your digital journey at HM Land Registry. What attracted you to join the organisation, and how has your role evolved since you started? Include any unexpected aspects of working in digital services in a property-focused government department.

I joined HM Land Registry (HMLR) as a newbie to product management. I’d been working in charity fundraising for a few years and was desperate for a career change. After doing some research I decided product management was the new career for me, and I was lucky enough to be offered a role here at HMLR. It turns out I have loads of transferable skills from my years of fundraising, and I’ve been really supported to learn new product skills by our product community of practice. Since I started I’ve been able to work on a couple of very different but interesting products, and I’ve taken on more responsibility as my confidence has grown.

What does a typical day look like in your digital role? Walk us through your routine, the types of challenges you tackle, and how your work directly impacts property owners and the wider public in the UK.

My days as an associate product manager are very varied. The product I work on supports our customers to submit applications without errors, which makes their journey smoother and means that we can process applications quicker. The rules around applications are very complicated, and our work also has implications for some of our internal systems, so there’s a lot to think about!

I work across two software development teams, and I start most days by reviewing any work my teams have completed the day before and checking that it meets the requirements we agreed. I then have daily stand ups with each team where we all share what we worked on yesterday and what we’ll be doing today. It’s a great opportunity to check in with everyone and make sure we’re all up to speed on what’s going on as things often move and change very quickly.

The rest of the day might be spent in workshops, checking in with my teams to make sure we’ve got things to work on, or speaking to different stakeholders to understand their needs. All my work is driven by the need to make things better for our internal and external customers.

What learning and development opportunities have you accessed while working in digital at HM Land Registry? Describe how the organisation has supported your professional growth and skill development.

As an associate product manager, I’m part of the product community of practice. This is a really supportive group of people and there are lots of opportunities for peer-to-peer learning. I’ve also been able to attend several conferences and recently got to go on a course to become a Certified Scrum Product Owner!

Tell us about collaboration in your role. How do you work across teams and disciplines at HM Land Registry to deliver digital services or products? Give an example of successful cross-team collaboration.

I have to work with loads of different teams to deliver my product. For example, I work with the user-centred design team to make sure my product meets users’ needs. I speak to user researchers to let them know what I think we need to find out from users, and I listen to their feedback so that I know what my teams should work on and how high a priority it needs.

Recently, I’ve asked the user research team to investigate whether the error messages we’ve created make sense to users, and to gain insights on how we could improve them.

Describe the culture within the digital teams at HM Land Registry. What values and working practices make it a distinctive place to build your career? Include any aspects of flexibility, inclusivity, or work-life balance that are important to you

There’s lots of flexibility when working in a digital team at HMLR, both in terms of what you work on and how you do it. My colleagues always support me when I want to learn about something new, and I’ve been able to work on things that are outside of my direct area just because I’m interested. I also love how flexible the working hours are – yesterday I used some of my flexi time to leave work early and go to the beach because the weather was nice!

How does your digital role at HM Land Registry contribute to the wider property sector and UK economy? Explain the importance of your work in the context of property transactions and land ownership in Britain.

The product I work on is helping to reduce errors in submitted applications. This means property transactions can be completed faster, and with less admin work from conveyancers, which should make them more efficient too.