Project Manager in Edinburgh

Location: UK based, remote

Salary: £30k-£45k p.a. based on experience

Contract: 1 x Permanent & 1 x 12 month fixed-term contract

Hours: Full-time 5 days a week

Reporting to: Head of Operations & Performance

Key partners: Strategists, Foresight and Planning, Production & Research Operations

Application: by CV and cover letter to

Why this role exists

The Project Manager owns the delivery of client projects and, alongside the Conspirators (the strategic consultant leads at Aha), is a guardian of the client relationship. Not from the perspective of the work itself, but from the perspective of the experience. How confident the client feels. How well-managed the process is. How consistently Aha shows up.

The work spans strategy, insight, innovation, and creative delivery, often running in parallel across complex, high-visibility partnerships. You hold the whole picture: the plan, the people, the pace, and the quality of the client experience throughout.

We are looking for someone who takes genuine ownership of delivery, upholds high standards of service, and acts as a trusted partner to both clients and Conspirators. Someone who cares as much about how work is delivered as what is delivered.

This is not a traditional account manager role. It is not a single-discipline project role. It is an end-to-end delivery role with full accountability for client experience and project success.

The core of the job

You are accountable for the end-to-end delivery of all projects. Your job is to bring structure, clarity and foresight to a broad and varied programme of work, so that Conspirators can focus on thinking and judgement, and our clients feel guided, prioritised and well cared for.

A core part of the role is acting as the day-to-day delivery partner and protector of Conspirators, ensuring they are clear on priorities, have protected thinking time, and are not overwhelmed by coordination, admin or competing demands.

You are the guardian of the client relationship from a service perspective. Not through over-servicing or bending rules, but through consistency, confidence, and excellence in how work is delivered. Clients should feel that Aha is always on top of it, always straight with them, and always focused on what matters.

What you will be responsible for

• Supporting Conspirators (non-negotiable)
• Working extremely closely with Conspirators across disciplines to understand what activities are required, when, and in what order
• Translating a complex, multi-stream programme into clear daily and weekly priorities
• Actively managing diaries and scheduling tools so delivery is prioritised and thinking time protected
• Ensuring all project team members know each day what they are expected to deliver and why it matters
• Acting as a buffer between Conspirators and client pressure, noise and coordination
• If Conspirators feel pulled in too many directions, unclear on priorities, or dragged into logistics, you intervene.

Programme-level delivery and coordination

• Managing multiple concurrent projects across different disciplines
• Designing delivery plans that allow different workstreams to interact sensibly rather than collide
• Sequencing work so insight, strategy, innovation and creative inform each other properly
• Working with the Foresight and Planning Coordinator to ensure project logistics and scheduling are accurate and commercially sound
• Planning and facilitating workshops, sprints, reviews and delivery moments
• Ensuring principal challenge and input is planned, expected and ongoing rather than ad hoc

Client confidence and partnership

• Acting as the main delivery contact for our clients
• Creating a sense of calm, control and momentum across a complex programme
• Managing expectations clearly and honestly
• Helping our clients feel prioritised and well supported without absorbing unpaid labour
• Flagging risks, trade-offs and decisions early rather than letting issues build

Commercial control and performance discipline

• Locking scope, assumptions and deliverables across a varied programme
• Tracking time, budget and other commercials across all client work
• Working with the Foresight and Planning Coordinator to ensure project logistics and scheduling are accurate and commercially sound
• Identifying and addressing scope creep early
• Leading clear, professional conversations about trade-offs when additional requests arise

What the day-to-day looks like

In reality, you will spend your time:

• Maintaining a clear overview of all client work, what has been done, what is coming up
• Talking frequently with Conspirators about priorities and focus
• Coordinating across disciplines and project types
• Managing client communication and expectations
• Monitoring timelines, budgets and risks
• Stepping in early when delivery starts to sprawl

This is a hands-on, embedded role at the heart of one of Aha’s most important relationships.

The kind of experience we’re looking for

We are open to different backgrounds, but you are likely to have significant experience in the following areas:

• Managing client-facing projects end to end in a fast-paced agency or consultancy environment, with growing confidence across complex, multi-stream work.
• Building strong client relationships and working with senior stakeholders, with the judgement to know when to push back and when to flex.
• Moving across different types of work: strategy, insight, creative delivery, or all three at once.
• Strong planning and organisational skills, with a track record of keeping projects on track even as priorities shift.
• Leading multi-disciplinary teams through complex and evolving projects, and the confidence to keep things moving clearly even when the answer is not yet fully defined.
• Managing competing priorities and multiple stakeholders in high-pressure environments, with the judgement to know when to make a call independently and when to escalate effectively.
• Collaborating with other Project and Planning Managers to resolve resourcing conflicts in the most effective way.

What you need to be good at

• Planning and organisation: Breaking complex, multi-stream work into clear, sequenced plans and keeping them current as things change. Understanding dependencies, what needs to wait and what can be done concurrently.
• Communication: Knowing what to say, to whom, and when. You adapt your style to the situation and audience making complicated things feel clear and manageable.
• Stakeholder management: Building trust with clients and internal teams, managing expectations honestly and having the confidence to push back when needed.
• Commercial awareness: Understanding budgets, scope, and time, and the relationship between them. Spotting margin risk early and flagging it clearly.
• Risk and issue management: Seeing problems before they land and having a plan ready when they do. Never the last person to know something is going wrong.
• Prioritisation: Making clear, confident calls on what matters most when everything feels urgent.
• Leadership without authority: Getting the best out of people who do not report to you, through influence, clarity, and trust rather than hierarchy.
• Adaptability: Staying effective when scope shifts, priorities change, or the brief evolves mid-project. Bringing others with you when it does.
• Attention to detail: Catching the thing everyone else missed before it becomes a problem.
• Resilience: Absorbing pressure without passing it on. Keeping the team and the client steady when things get hard. Always calm under pressure.

Why this role matters

If this role is done well, clients feel genuinely prioritised and well supported. Conspirators can do their best thinking and work flows more smoothly across disciplines. Rework drops and delivery feels calmer and the partnership deepens and grows. This role is critical to Aha’s most important client relationships and to the agency’s future.

About Aha

Aha works with charities and purpose-driven organisations to solve complex problems through strategy, insight, creativity, and innovation. We believe great thinking deserves great execution, and that people do their best work when expectations are clear, judgement is respected, and delivery is well designed.