Azure Programme Manager 6 Months FTC

Reporting to the Director of IT, the Azure Programme Manager will spearhead our transition from on-premise infrastructure to the Azure cloud platform. This role is integral to our digital transformation strategy, aimed at modernising our IT landscape to achieve greater scalability, flexibility, and innovation.

As the Azure Programme Manager, you will lead the planning, execution, and successful delivery of our cloud migration programme. Working with our third-party partner, you will be responsible for overseeing the development of a comprehensive migration strategy that aligns with our business objectives, ensuring that the transition is seamless and minimally disruptive to ongoing operations.

You will oversee the implementation of migration activities, coordinating cross-functional teams, suppliers and managing resources to ensure timely completion of project milestones.

Effective stakeholder engagement is crucial, as you will collaborate with various departments to gather requirements, address concerns, and ensure alignment with organisational goals. You will communicate regularly with senior management and key stakeholders, providing updates on progress, risks, and issues.

Technical leadership is being provided by our third-party partner and technical expertise is not a key component of this role. You will oversee delivery of our partner and IT teams to ensure resolution of technical challenges and ensure that the cloud solution delivered is designed for optimal performance, security, and compliance.

Risk management will be a priority, as you identify potential obstacles and develop strategies to mitigate them, ensuring a smooth and successful migration. You will establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor the programme's success and drive continuous improvement.

This fixed-term contract offers a unique opportunity to play a pivotal role in our organisation's cloud journey, contributing to increased agility, efficiency, and competitive advantage. Your expertise in programme management, cloud technologies, and stakeholder engagement will be crucial to achieving our migration objectives.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Delivery of significant Infrastructure change projects or programmes (£500k-£3m)
• Project Management following the project methodology guidelines and project governance framework.
• Producing project documentation as required to a high standard
• Managing and reporting on project budgets to ensure that the projects are delivered within budget and with transparent cost management.
• Developing project plans and managing milestones to ensure that projects are delivered within the required timescales
• Identifying project resource requirements and managing those resources to deliver the project artefacts.
• Managing project scope, tasks and deliverables to agreed acceptance criteria.
• Identification and management of risks and contingency plans.
• Directing and co-ordinating activities of project team members to ensure project progresses on schedule and within budget
• Ensuring project deliverables are produced to required levels of quality
• Tracking progress against expected benefits to ensure that those benefits are still achievable.
• Preparing project status reports to keep management and stakeholders informed of project progress and related issues
• Co-ordinating and responding to requests for changes from original specifications
• Working with third party suppliers and managing supplier relationships to ensure delivery to contractual requirements
• Adhering to project governance and supporting PMO in the delivery of the overall portfolio.
• Comply with all relevant legal and regulatory obligations including the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Standards and Regulations, and Principles.

Skills and experience

• Minimum 5 years project management experience on Infrastructure projects.
• Experience of managing data centre migrations to hybrid cloud environments
• An understanding of Azure and cloud deployments
• Technical expertise is not expected, but familiarity with data centres, networking, unified comms, active directory, Microsoft office products, Cloud technologies (Azure or AWS) and Security applications is highly desirable.
• Experience of managing third party supplier relationships and familiarity with outsource arrangements.
• An appreciation of current IT technologies and able to discuss and explain to Stakeholders with limited technical knowledge.
• Has the authority and skill to establish good working relationships and influence decisions at all levels of seniority within the company.
• Prince2 or a similar recognised Project management qualification

Hybrid working

We adopt a hybrid and flexible working approach, dependent on the requirements of the role and subject to manager approval.

Charles Russell Speechlys is an Equal Opportunities Employer, and we are committed to developing an increasingly diverse, inclusive and supportive culture where everyone can be themselves, feel valued, and that they can thrive and belong. Please see here for more information on our employee-led DEI Networks.

For a detailed specification please download the job description in the documents section of this page.