Programme Director – Hertfordshire
- Contract start 1st of June 2026
- £1000 per day Inside IR35 – paid via an umbrella
- Hybrid working
A senior leadership role within the Strategic Projects and Management Office. The postholder is accountable for the successful delivery of the organisation’s portfolio of projects and programmes, setting standards and best practice for project and programme managers, ensuring that strategic initiatives are executed effectively, on time, within budget, and to defined quality standards.
The role provides leadership and direction across all delivery teams, shaping delivery strategy, driving execution excellence, and ensuring outcomes realise intended business benefits. The role influences senior stakeholders and aligns delivery activity with organisational priorities.
This role requires excellent leadership qualities, who is strategic, proactive, and highly experienced technology leader with a strong track record in delivering complex programmes and projects, and the confidence to engage effectively with senior stakeholders.
Key Responsibilities
Delivery Leadership and Execution
- Lead the end-to-end delivery of all projects and programmes across the organisation.
- Ensure delivery outcomes align with strategic objectives and business priorities.
- Establish clear accountability for delivery across programme and project managers.
- Drive a culture of ownership, pace, and high performance across delivery teams.
Programme and Project Oversight
- Oversee planning, mobilisation, and execution of major programmes and projects.
- Ensure robust management of scope, schedule, cost, quality, and benefits.
- Monitor delivery performance and intervene where required to address delays.
- Manage interdependencies across programmes.
Delivery Strategy
- Ensure the organisation adopts appropriate delivery approaches (e.g., Agile, waterfall, hybrid).
- Align delivery structures to strategic objectives.
- Continuously optimise delivery practices to improve speed, quality, and predictability.
Stakeholder Engagement and Leadership
- Act as the senior escalation point for delivery issues, risks, and decisions.
- Build strong relationships with executive stakeholders, business leaders and change sponsors.
- Provide clear and confident reporting on delivery progress, risks, and outcomes.
- Influence decision-making to resolve conflicts, prioritise work, and allocate resources effectively.
Resource and Capacity Management
- Ensure effective allocation and utilisation of delivery resources across programmes and projects.
- Balance demand and capacity, resolving conflicts and constraints.
- Work with resource managers to ensure availability of skilled resources.
- Support development of workforce plans to support future delivery demand.
Risk, Issue, and Dependency Management
- Ensure proactive identification and management of delivery risks and issues.
- Oversee mitigation strategies and ensure timely resolution of blockers.
- Manage cross-programme dependencies and organisational impacts.
- Escalate critical risks to executive leadership with clear recommendations.
Benefits Realisation
- Ensure programmes and projects are structured to deliver measurable business outcomes.
- Track and monitor benefits realisation throughout and beyond delivery.
- Hold delivery teams and business stakeholders accountable for achieving benefits.
- Ensure alignment between delivery outputs and strategic value creation.
Continuous Improvement and Delivery Capability
- Drive continuous improvement in delivery performance, tools, and practices.
- Establish a high-performing delivery community with shared standards and best practice.
- Coach and develop programme and project managers to enhance capability.
- Promote a culture of learning, accountability, and delivery excellence.
Key Skills & Experience
- Significant experience leading large-scale programmes and project portfolios.
- Proven track record of delivering complex, cross-functional strategic change initiatives.
- Proven experience in leading and developing high-performing, cross-functional project & programme teams.
- Strong experience in stakeholder engagement at executive level.
- Demonstrated ability to drive delivery performance and accountability.
- Leads the identification, planning, and coordination of programmes to deliver strategic objectives.
- Ensures alignment between programme outcomes and organisational goals.
- Strong track record in managing risks, dependencies, and stakeholder engagement at a strategic level.
- Comfortable in delivering complex information to senior stakeholders clearly and effectively.
- Extensive knowledge of budgeting & forecasting activities across project and programme portfolios.
Desirable Qualifications
- Educated to degree level in a relevant discipline (e.g., IT, Business, Management, Engineering) or equivalent professional experience.
- Relevant professional certifications such as APM, PMP, PRINCE2, MSP, AgilePM, SAFe.
- Experience with Agile delivery frameworks (e.g., SAFe, Scrum at scale).
- Experienced in using project and programme management tools (e.g. MS Project, Azure DevOps) to track delivery, plan resources and manage budgets.
We are committed to ensuring that all job applicants are treated equally, without discrimination because of gender, sexual orientation, marital or civil partner status, gender reassignment, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, disability or age.
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