Senior Design Programme Controls Manager

Together, we’re working to welcome millions more passengers, while ensuring aviation can continue to be a force for good by leading global efforts in sustainability. At Heathrow, you can be part of this – providing solutions that make every journey better for millions each year. That means ensuring we meet the changing needs of the passengers, colleagues and partners who use our airport to work, travel, trade, shop, eat, explore and connect.

Our Solutions team covers project management, process improvement, business change, technology, cyber defence, masterplanning, infrastructure and procurement. It brings together people with the skills to deliver prestigious and often large-scale projects, from transforming terminals to making big reductions in our carbon emissions.

As Senior Design Programme Controls Manager, you’ll provide leadership across a portfolio, ensuring consistent application of design assurance, governance and approval processes. The Senior Design PCM will provide senior leadership in the governance and programme controls, setting expectations on performance, ensuring cross-portfolio consistency and leading the strategic engagement with Supply chain and Procurement to drive high-value outcomes. Programme and Project Controls is central to delivering effective programme and project outcomes. The Senior Design PCM ensures programmes and projects are held to account for adherence to established project management processes ahead of investment decisions, providing independent assurance that robust, validated data underpins all decision-making.

Your role will involve:

• Providing assurance that programme design, approvals and agreed processes are consistently applied, while driving alignment and consistency across multiple programmes in design approaches.
• Accountable for providing a direct interface with Programme Directors, ensuring consistent delivery of PMO services and outputs across all programmes during the pre-investment phase.
• Providing senior leadership and direction to a multi-disciplinary team of Design PCMs, driving alignment, capability development and performance across programmes, with a strong focus on team wellbeing.
• Embedding a constructive, collaborative and appropriately challenging Project Controls culture that supports programme success and enables continuous improvement and learning.
• Supporting the implementation of best practice Project Controls across core disciplines, including planning, cost management, estimating, risk management, integrated change control and management information.
• Overseeing resource allocation and providing day-to-day direction, ensuring timely and robust cost and performance data is available to inform decision-making during the pre-investment phase.

These Skills Are Essential:

• Deep understanding of design across programme and project performance data in the design stage, to ensure integrity of data and information reported to support effective decision-making.
• Experienced as a design-led Programme Controls SME, supporting projects through the design phase and ensuring robust application of design assurance and control disciplines.
• Extensive experience in Programme Controls and PMO processes, including estimating, planning, cost management, risk and change management.
• Highly effective in presenting complex design, controls and governance insights to senior stakeholders, including executive leadership and shareholders, enabling informed decision-making.
• Significant experience working collaboratively with supply chain partners across the project lifecycle, ensuring alignment to design standards, controls and governance requirements.
• Highly skilled in presenting complex information, insights and recommendations to senior executives and shareholders.

There’s something so special about working at the world’s most iconic airport. Heathrow is an amazing backdrop to a career filled with unique opportunities. Every day, you’ll discover a world full of fresh possibilities and end the day buzzing with stories to tell, as you encounter people from all cultures, nationalities and experiences. A world full of pride for what we do and no end of exciting career prospects to explore. It brings out the best in all of us and inspires everyone to deliver on our ambitious plans.

We offer competitive salaries and excellent benefits that will support you now and in the future. As well as performance-based annual bonuses and our longer-term Share in Success Bonus plans, we also offer generous annual leave allowances and market-leading pensions. With family friendly policies, access to private health insurance and a wide range of wellbeing tools, we’ll support you to be at your best inside and outside work. And of course, we’ll provide varied learning and development opportunities too. Here you’ll find everything you need for a fulfilling career journey that can take you in exciting directions.

Our Hybrid working approach offers the opportunity for colleagues in some roles to work from home for an average of two days a week, providing the flexibility to work in an agile way whilst ensuring we deliver for the operational needs of Heathrow. Working arrangements vary from team to team and will be confirmed during the recruitment process. You’ll need to be based in the UK and within a commutable distance to Heathrow.

As an equal opportunities employer, we encourage applications from all. We believe that diverse talent makes us stronger – not least because we welcome passengers from all corners of the globe, every single day. Heathrow is an accessible place to work. With five diversity networks, we champion inclusivity and celebrate individuality.