Project Management Office (PMO) Manager in England

Help turn strategy into meaningful change. We’re looking for an experienced and values‑driven PMO Manager to play a pivotal role in shaping and delivering our strategic change portfolio. This is a high‑impact, national role where you’ll translate strategic ambition into thoughtful, well‑governed delivery – ensuring our programmes and projects deliver real, sustainable outcomes for people and communities.

This is a full time permanent role with travel to our head office in Widnes once a week so our ideal candidate will be based within an hour's commute of Widnes.

What is "The Deal" for you?

• Flexibility: You can work your 37.5 hours over 4 days and enjoy a long weekend, or split the hours over 5 days to accommodate your other commitments.
• Pension: contributory pension scheme.
• Benefits: retail discounts, holiday discounts, cycle to work scheme and travel discounts through our benefits app.
• Best Lives Possible: You’ll be working for an award winning charity who is passionate about ensuring our colleagues and the people we support lead the best lives.
• Development: We’ll work with you to develop your career or to learn and experience new things. We’re passionate about developing our people!
• Support: From our Employee Assistance Programme (available 24/7), financial support options, and wellbeing fund you’ll have the support available to lead an easier (financial) life.

As our PMO Manager, you’ll act as a centre of excellence for portfolio, programme and project management. You’ll provide clarity, assurance and insight to Executive and Trustee level stakeholders, while building delivery maturity and capability across the organisation.

Reporting into the Director of Strategy and Change, the PMO Manager will:

• Lead the strategic portfolio planning and reporting cycle, providing clear visibility of priorities, progress, risks and benefits.
• Design and embed pragmatic PMO frameworks, governance and assurance that enable informed decision‑making without slowing delivery.
• Act as a trusted internal consultant and subject matter expert, supporting teams to deliver change confidently and consistently.
• Drive continuous improvement in delivery maturity, tools and ways of working.
• Build strong, collaborative relationships across operational, functional and support service teams across England and Scotland.

In this varied and high-profile role, you will be responsible for:

• Strategy & Portfolio Leadership: Leading the annual strategic planning process and coordinating functional plans and budgets; Developing and maintaining a clear, prioritised portfolio roadmap aligned to organisational goals and delivery capacity.
• Governance, Assurance & Reporting: Owning monthly and quarterly portfolio reporting for Executives, Committees and the Board; Defining and managing governance forums, stage gates, assurance processes and decision logs; Providing confidence on delivery health, risks, dependencies and benefits realisation.
• Transformation & Delivery Excellence: Leading the development and evolution of PMO frameworks, standards, methodologies and tools; Supporting resource planning and capacity management to inform prioritisation decisions; Providing hands‑on project management support and, where required, leading key projects; Owning lessons learned and driving continuous improvement across change delivery.
• Systems, Finance & Risk: Leading the use and development of project management systems and templates (e.g. Smartsheet); Managing supplier relationships for PMO tools and systems; Tracking portfolio‑level costs and working closely with Finance to ensure accurate reporting; Collaborating with teams to manage risks, issues and dependencies proactively.
• People & Capability: Setting clear expectations and coaching team members and colleagues to maximise PMO effectiveness; Building organisational capability through guidance, training and knowledge sharing; Fostering a positive, inclusive and high‑performance culture.

What success looks like:

• Clear, trusted portfolio insight that supports confident Executive and Trustee decision‑making.
• Improved consistency, quality and predictability of project delivery.
• Reduced delivery risk through proactive governance and early intervention.
• Strong stakeholder feedback on PMO support, tools and ways of working.
• A more mature, capable PMO function that continuously evolves and improves.

Our ideal candidate:

• Essential: Degree‑level education or equivalent professional experience in project, programme or portfolio management; Practitioner‑level certification (e.g. PRINCE2, MSP, AgilePM) or equivalent experience; Proven experience leading PMO functions in complex, multi‑stakeholder environments; Strong portfolio, programme and project management expertise, including benefits realisation; Experience of resource planning, capacity tracking and portfolio‑level reporting; Excellent communication skills, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders.
• Desirable: Experience in agile or adaptive portfolio governance; Use of digital PMO tooling and data visualisation (e.g. Power BI); Engagement with external networks or benchmarking groups.

Who you are: You’re a collaborative and resilient leader with a can‑do mindset and a passion for delivering meaningful change. You’re comfortable operating in ambiguity, able to challenge constructively, and motivated by values‑driven work that makes a genuine difference. You bring empathy, clarity and pragmatism to everything you do – and you’re excited by the opportunity to shape how change is delivered across a national charity.

Why join us?

• A senior, influential role with real strategic impact.
• The opportunity to shape and mature a PMO function at organisational scale.
• A values‑led environment focused on improving lives and communities.
• Supportive, collaborative culture with scope to innovate and lead.

Please note, if you are interested in this role, we welcome your application as soon as possible! Depending on the volume of applications received, the vacancy may be closed before the expected advertising end date.

Interested and want to know a bit more? To find out more about our charity check out: We’re really proud to be a Hive HR Employee Voice Certified organisation, a recognition that confirms our commitment to creating a culture where our colleagues are not only encouraged to share their thoughts, but where this feedback is actively sought and acted upon to drive positive change at every level. In our 2025 Colleague Engagement Survey, 59% (nearly 3,800) of our people shared their feedback and insights, giving us an incredible Employee Net Promoter Score of +34. The Employee Net Promoter Score is a measure of how willing our colleagues are to recommend us as a good place to work to their loved ones – and a score of +34 is considered a Very Good score when compared to global benchmarks set by hundreds of other organisations.