Junior Project Manager

Welcome to HIGHVERN. We are an award-winning provider of private wealth, fund and corporate administration services.

The ideal candidate is an organised, proactive, and ambitious project delivery professional at an early stage of their career, ready to build their experience within a fast-paced, PE-backed financial services organisation. They will bring strong coordination capability, excellent attention to detail, and the interpersonal confidence to operate effectively with senior stakeholders, underpinned by genuine enthusiasm for delivery and a desire to grow within the role. We are looking for someone who combines good judgement and a positive, professional approach with a strong appetite to learn. The successful candidate will be closely supported by the Project Director and will benefit from a structured development environment, while being expected to bring initiative, reliability, and sufficient self-direction to manage day-to-day outputs without close supervision. Experience in financial services is advantageous but not essential; what matters most is structured thinking, consistent delivery, sound judgement, and the right attitude.

Key Accountabilities

• Maintain and update consolidated project/programme plans, workstream schedules, and milestone trackers across all in-flight initiatives, ensuring the Project Director has an accurate and current picture of delivery progress at all times.
• Coordinate and schedule cross-functional meetings, workshops, and governance sessions; including preparation of agendas, pre-read materials, and post-meeting action logs.
• Monitor workstream progress against plan, following up with owners on outstanding actions and escalating slippage or blockers to the Project Director promptly and with clear context.
• Maintain a consolidated view of programme dependencies, identifying and flagging inter-workstream conflicts or sequencing risks before they materialise.
• Manage small change initiatives where appropriate, taking ownership of planning, coordination, stakeholder follow-up, delivery tracking, and escalation of risks or issues to the Project Director.

Risk, Issue & Assumption Tracking

• Own and maintain the project/programme RAID log (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, and Dependencies), working with workstream leads to ensure entries are current, owned, and actively managed.
• Support the Project Director in preparing risk and issue summaries for governance forums, escalating items requiring senior attention with clear and concise context.
• Track agreed mitigating actions to completion, maintaining an auditable record of decisions and outcomes.
• Proactively identify patterns or clusters of risk that may indicate broader programme health concerns requiring escalation or intervention.

Governance & Reporting Support

• Support the preparation and production of programme status reports, steering committee packs, and executive updates as directed by the Project Director; collating inputs, formatting content, and ensuring materials are accurate and professionally presented.
• Maintain governance artefacts including decision logs, action trackers, and meeting minutes, distributing promptly and following up on agreed actions.
• Support the running of governance cadences, ensuring meetings run to time and actions are clearly captured and owned.
• Maintain programme-level documentation in line with agreed naming conventions, version control, and repository management protocols.

Stakeholder Coordination

• Act as a coordination point for stakeholder communications, ensuring the right people are included in the right conversations at the right time.
• Liaise with workstream leads, business SMEs, technology teams, and third-party vendors to gather progress updates and chase outstanding inputs on behalf of the Project Director.
• Support the onboarding of new programme resources, coordinating system access, inductions, and documentation handovers.
• Maintain stakeholder registers and communication logs, supporting the Project Director in managing engagement across multiple functions and jurisdictions.

Change Readiness & Delivery Support

• Support change readiness activities by helping to coordinate assessments, collate stakeholder feedback, and track readiness actions to completion under the direction of the Project Manager, Senior Business Analyst and Project Director.
• Assist in the preparation and quality-checking of project/programme documentation including process guides, handover materials, and transition summaries, ensuring documents are complete, correctly versioned, and stored in the agreed repository.
• Support UAT coordination activities including scheduling, participant communications, defect log maintenance, and tracking of test sign-off confirmations.
• Contribute to lessons learned exercises and continuous improvement activities, capturing feedback and helping to embed better delivery practices across the programme.
• Maintain programme resource trackers and support the Project Director in monitoring utilisation across workstreams.
• Assist in tracking programme spend against approved budgets, flagging variances or forecast concerns to the Project Director in a timely manner.
• Support procurement and onboarding of third-party suppliers where required, coordinating documentation and approvals through appropriate channels.

Requirements

• 1–3 years of experience in a project coordinator, PMO analyst, Junior PM, or change support role.
• Strong organisational skills; able to track multiple workstreams and deliverables accurately and simultaneously.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office 365, particularly Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams; comfortable with project tracking tools.
• Confident communicator; able to liaise with senior stakeholders, chase actions diplomatically, and escalate issues clearly.
• Methodical and detail-oriented; able to maintain accurate logs, trackers, and documentation under pressure.
• Demonstrates initiative and ownership; raises issues proactively rather than waiting to be directed.
• Comfortable working in an environment with evolving priorities and a degree of ambiguity.