Job Title: Connect to Work - Contract Manager
Department: Central London Forward
Office Location: Guildhall
Contractual hours: 35 hours
Work Pattern: Monday to Friday, 9:15am – 5:00pm
Basis: Full -Time, Fixed Term/Secondment - 1 year
Workplace category: Hybrid
Workplace role categories describe our approach to workplace attendance.
Attachments: Job Description and Person Specification
Summary of Terms and Conditions of Employment
Shape the delivery of a flagship employment programme across Central London
Central London Forward (CLF) is the strategic sub-regional partnership of 12 central London boroughs, working together to drive inclusive growth and improve outcomes for residents and businesses.
We are seeking an experienced Connect to Work Contract Manager to lead the contract management of the Connect to Work programme across our member boroughs on a one year fixed term contract or secondment. This is an exciting opportunity to play a pivotal role in managing delivery of a high-profile employment programme, ensuring strong performance, effective partnership working and excellent contract governance.
About the role
Working closely with the Greater London Authority, our 12 member boroughs, delivery partners and wider stakeholders, you will build on the success of Year 1 delivery and ensure Year 2 continues to provide high quality support to our borough residents and meet key milestones.
You will provide robust contract management, performance oversight and compliance assurance, while building strong relationships that enable collaborative and effective delivery across the sub-region.
The role has significant responsibility for the financial management of this high value government programme, ensuring public funds are managed effectively, contractual claims are robust and accurate, and financial reporting meets the requirements of both the GLA and DWP. This role requires someone who is equally comfortable analysing financial and performance data, managing contractual obligations and engaging senior stakeholders across local government and national partners.
What you'll be responsible for
- Managing the delivery of a high-value DWP-funded employment contract across Central London's 12 boroughs.
- Maintaining strong relationships with senior officers across our member local authorities, GLA and delivery providers.
- Monitoring contract performance against agreed KPIs and outcomes, identifying risks and driving continuous improvement.
- Ensuring contractual compliance, quality assurance and effective governance arrangements are in place.
- Leading contract review meetings, performance discussions and reporting to programme boards and senior stakeholders.
- Managing contract variations, risks, issues and escalation processes where required.
- Supporting boroughs to achieve consistently high standards of programme delivery and participant outcomes.
- Working collaboratively to identify opportunities for innovation, learning and best practice across the partnership.
- Managing a high value budget to ensure spend and claims are rigorously managed and reported.
- Travel to borough sites will be part of the role
About you
You will bring:
- Significant experience managing large-scale, high-value DWP-funded contracts or similar government-funded employment programmes.
- Experience of managing substantial programme budgets, financial monitoring, forecasting, claims and grant reporting within publicly funded programmes.
- Significant experience of contract management, performance management and compliance within large scale publicly funded programmes.
- Strong relationship management skills, with experience of working across multiple local authorities, funding bodies and complex partnerships.
- Experience of monitoring KPIs, analysing financial and performance data and driving service improvement.
- Excellent stakeholder management, negotiation and influencing skills.
- Experience of identifying and managing contractual, financial and operational risks.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to prepare reports and present complex financial and performance information to senior stakeholders.
- A collaborative approach, with the ability to balance support, challenge and accountability across multiple partners.
This is an opportunity to help shape the delivery of one of the largest government's flagship employment programmes across Central London. You'll work at the heart of a unique partnership of 12 boroughs, influencing strategic delivery, improving employment outcomes for residents and making a tangible difference across the capital.
If you are an experienced contract manager with a strong track record of delivering complex DWP-funded programmes and building successful partnerships, we'd love to hear from you.
Closing date: 23:59pm Wednesday 29th July 2026
Level of DBS required for this role:
Standard
Level of vetting required?
No security vetting is required
Does this post require a Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) check?
No
Is this a politically restricted post?
No
The City of London Corporation is committed to Equal Opportunities and welcomes applications from all sections of the community.
We reserve the right to close the advert earlier should we receive a high number of applications.
Because our roles are so varied, we don’t have a ‘one size fits all’ policy for workplace attendance. How many days a week you’ll be required to attend your workplace will depend on the requirements of your role. It’s important that you understand the requirements before applying to ensure you are able to meet them. We are committed to considering requests to work flexibly and job share. Requests will be considered by the recruiting manager in line with our policies and business needs.
For more information on our categories for workplace attendance, please view our guide here.
We will be reviewing this policy and approach at regular intervals to ensure we’re meeting our attendance needs.
