Education Project Manager in London

We support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide. We work directly with individuals to help them gain the skills, confidence and connections to transform their lives and shape a better world in partnership with the UK. We support them to build networks and explore creative ideas, to learn English, to get a high-quality education and to gain internationally recognised qualifications. Working with people in over 200 countries and territories, we are on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2021–22 we reached 650 million people.

Role Purpose

Implementation of projects with a low level of complexity funded by British Council or by another client or funding mechanism. Leads the successful delivery of a range of projects from start to finish including managing the contract or project plan, managing client or internal stakeholders, successfully achieving reporting and meeting compliance standards. Or works within a larger programme or multi-country programme on a particular component.

Main Accountabilities:

• Relationship & Stakeholder management
  • Has relationships with delivery partners and stakeholders within country and is able to procure services and contract delivery partners.
  • Holds suppliers to account for delivering against contract.
  • Build strong internal relationships and networks.
• Commercial and Financial Management
  • Ensure sound financial planning, working closely with finance teams to ensure British Council and client financial year plans are up to date.
  • Ensure accurate and timely monthly (re)forecasting is in place, by running regular reports in the SAP system on actuals, monitoring outstanding purchase orders, reviewing commitments, analysing and commenting on reasons for variances to plan and recommending corrective actions.
  • Monitoring monthly finances, including correct expenditure, ensuring the P2P process is being followed and correcting any mis-postings or journals needed.
  • Lead on British Council, partner or client reporting (including, with Finance Manager, financial reporting) and ensure reports are delivered on time, to budget and to a high standard.
  • Compliance to BC financial policies and procedures.
• Project Management
  • Contributes to development of, owns and delivers on Project Management Plan.
  • Identifies risks in a project or programme and puts together mitigation strategies with SRO.
  • Responsible for internal and client, procurement, contracting, compliance and reporting pm.
  • Checks on and reports on compliance.
  • Manages procurement on a project/programme.
  • Responsible for data management including timely data entry, quality assurance of data, undertaking basic analysis of monitoring data, and developing progress reports to meet funding needs.
  • Undertaking programme-specific data collection as needed. This includes working with colleagues to identify indicators and tools for data collection, quality assuring all data, and undertaking basic analysis.
• Business Development
  • Supports the identification and development of professional networks, relationships and partnerships to increase the British Council’s impact and reputation.
  • Ensures high quality and accurate pipeline data for country/pillar.
  • Conducts specific pipeline and partner/competitor analysis to contribute to business development planning and prioritisation.
  • Provides support with development of new business proposals, ensuring that internal and external professional standards are met.
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)
  • To actively contribute to an inclusive and anti-racist organisational culture, being aware of your own biases, and taking action to mitigate against these. Ensuring people feel valued and are treated equitably, with support for people’s well-being and mental health.
  • Understand the British Council’s approach to equality, diversity and inclusion and how it applies to your role and make time for learning and development relating to EDI and anti-racism.

Minimum/essential Requirements

• Experience of managing projects from start to finish and familiarity with project life-cycles.
• Understanding of procurement, evaluation and reporting requirements of projects.
• Proven experience of managing project finances.
• 3-years experience in managing education projects.
• Experience of managing stakeholders.
• Project management qualification desirable.
• Experience of working in project or programme management.
• Experience of using technology in project delivery.
• Good understanding and experience of supporting monitoring and evaluation.

Desirable Requirements

• Managing education projects in International Organizations.
• Foundation level Project Management certificate or relevant work experience.