Delivery Manager (Research Operations)

£37,000 - £41,000 plus benefits

Reports to: Senior Delivery Manager (Research Operations and Communications)

Directorate: Research & Innovation

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Full time 35 hours per week

Location: Stratford, London Office-based with high flexibility (1-2 days per week in the office)

Closing date: Thursday 25th June 23:55pm

Interview process: 2 stage competency based interview process

Interview date: First stage w/c 6th July 2026 – Second stage w/c 13th July

Visa sponsorship: You must be eligible to work in the UK to apply for this vacancy. Cancer Research UK is not able to offer visa sponsorship.

What will you be doing?

• Drive and lead the delivery of cross-department projects, being responsible for elements including planning, delivery, reporting and pro-actively seeking and resolving blockers.
• Matrix-management of cross-departmental project teams. Providing leadership to teams of varying size, creating the conditions for accountability and collaborations.
• Collaborate with Sponsor and Business Owners to clearly define the vision, objectives, key milestones, governance and roadmap of the project.
• Establish appropriate governance frameworks to ensure that activities are managed effectively, and decisions and escalations are managed appropriately.
• Take direct accountability for stakeholder expectations, develop and maintain strong and constructive working relationships at all levels from stakeholders through to project team members, to ensure that all necessary resources and contributors are fully behind the delivery.
• Develop clear plans, including clear deliverables, milestones, dependencies, owners, risks and mitigations.
• Monitoring project progress and proactively adjusting plans as necessary to ensure goals are met and projects are delivered in accordance with best practice and standards.
• Ensure the Research & Partnerships Director has necessary briefings for key meetings with external stakeholders, drafting these in close collaboration with Partnership and Science teams.
• Oversight of cross-departmental activities and key priorities to ensure these are aligned with key review and governance points, including leadership team meeting, CRUK Executive Boards and Committees.
• Ownership of departmental meeting planning and collaborating with CRUK Internal Comms teams on Research & Innovation events, as required.
• Support with operational planning and reporting for the Research & Partnerships department.
• To be responsible for ensuring departmental objectives and work plans are monitored and reported to the Director and Leadership Team, proactively identifying risks as required.
• Contribute to wider Planning & Delivery Team activities by helping to embed a consistent project delivery framework across R&I and support the implementation of project management best practice.

What are we looking for?

• Strong project management track record, with a demonstrated ability to deliver on a diversity of projects.
• Knowledge or experience of at least one formal project management methodology, e.g. APM or Prince2.
• Highly organised, able to set and meet demanding deadlines, and to hold others accountable for delivery of projects/activities.
• Ability to build effective relationships with and influence a broad range of stakeholders at all levels.
• Understanding how to influence effectively and build consensus and matrix manage cross-disciplinary teams.
• Strong analytical skills – able to bring structure to complex problems, and extract key issues, and to present data in a clear and concise format.
• Confident in discussing difficult issues and to influence solutions with staff at all levels.
• Assured self-starter, with an ability to work independently, delivering day-to-day workload and priorities with minimal supervision.
• Strategic thinking and an ability to think beyond the immediate issues.
• Excellent IT skills including Microsoft office applications and Office 360.

Our organisation values

• Bold: Act with ambition, courage and determination
• Credible: Act with rigour and professionalism
• Human: Act to have a positive impact on people
• Together: Act inclusively and collaboratively

We’re looking for people who can believe in and embody these organisation values and can use them to drive forward progress against our mission to beat cancer.

What will I gain?

We create a working environment that supports your wellbeing and provide a generous benefits package, a wide range of career and personal development opportunities and high-quality tools. Our policies and processes enable you to improve your work-life balance, take positive steps in your career and achieve your personal wellbeing goals. You can explore our benefits by visiting our careers web page.

Equal opportunities

We want to see every candidate performing at their best throughout the job application process, interview process and whilst at work. We therefore ask you to inform us of any concerns you have or any adjustments you might need to enable this to happen. Please contact or as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, we are unable to recruit anyone below the age of 18, so that we can protect young people from health & safety and safeguarding risks.