Senior Project Manager

Location: Hybrid / Stratford, London, UK
job type: Permanent / Full-time
Sector and subsector: Business Operations | Project Management
Salary: Competitive salary

Job title: Senior Project Manager

Reporting to: Head of Innovation and Change

Hours: Full time Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm (37.5 hours per week)

Location: Stratford, London office - Hybrid working – occasional travel to all current & future Affinia office locations.

Affinia is the UK’s largest purpose-led, purpose-built Accountancy firm, focused on building stronger, more valuable relationships. With over 1600 colleagues across the East, South East, London and the Midlands, we are dedicated to supporting our clients, colleagues and communities.

We advise businesses, public sector organisations, charities and individuals throughout the UK and internationally across six Service Lines - Accountancy & Advisory, Tax and Planning, Audit & Assurance, Corporate Finance, Payroll and Corporate Recovery. Our team also offer in-depth sector expertise across a number of sectors, ensuring our clientsreceive the best short to medium and long-term advice, tailored to them. We are committed to delivering excellence in every aspect of our work, adapting to the evolving technology and regulatory landscape while consistently exceeding client expectations.

Our people are our most valuable asset. We are therefore committed to supporting our colleagues throughout their professional development, providing guidance and training at whatever stage of their career they join us.

Purpose of the role:

We are looking for a Senior Project Manager to take ownership of multiple projects across a growing and fast-moving portfolio. You will run them end to end: scope, plan, budget, risks, delivery and benefits. You will be trusted to make the call on the day to day and to bring the right decisions to the right forum at the right time.

You will join the Innovation and Change team, working closely on the design of the firm's future operating and technology landscape. That means partnering with senior business stakeholders on transformation and AI initiatives and working alongside the Acquisition Integration team so the two streams move as one programme rather than two. You will have real input into what gets built, in what order, and why.

On any given week you might be shaping a business case, chairing a steering group, unpicking a data issue with a vendor, or helping a service line head think through what AI actually changes for their team. You will represent Innovation and Change in senior stakeholder forums and act as a point of contact across the portfolio. You will also raise the bar for how projects are run here: better templates, cleaner reporting, sharper governance, and coaching for less experienced colleagues.

You will be working with internal teams and external partners across technology, integration, data, AI and business change. The work is visible at Board level, the pace is quick, and the ambition is high. If you want a role where your judgement shapes the answer rather than just tracks it, this is it.

What makes this role different

• Portfolio breadth, not a single project. You will hold the view across several workstreams at once.
• Genuine influence on future state design, not delivery of someone else's blueprint.
• A firm growing through acquisition, so integration and transformation run side by side.
• Permanent, hybrid, with the scope to grow as the portfolio grows.

Key responsibilities:

Delivery

• Own a portfolio of concurrent projects end to end: scope, plan, budget, resource, risk and benefits.
• Set each project up properly at the start: business case, success measures, governance and a plan people can be held to.
• Track delivery against milestones and budget. Report status honestly, including when it is off track.
• Manage suppliers and delivery partners against their contracts, from selection through go live to handover into support.

Stakeholders and governance

• Act as the day to day contact for senior stakeholders across service lines and central functions.
• Run steering groups and project boards: papers, decisions, actions and follow up.
• Prepare Board and ExCo level updates on progress, risk, cost and value.
• Escalate early and with a recommendation, not just a problem.

Change and adoption

• Plan and deliver the change side of every project: impact assessment, communications, training and adoption tracking.
• Work with the Acquisition Integration team so integration and transformation activity lands as one plan for the business.
• Measure whether the change has stuck, and act when it has not.

Portfolio and practice

• Hold the single view of the portfolio: dependencies, resource conflicts, sequencing and capacity.
• Improve how projects are run at Affinia: templates, reporting, governance standards and stage gates.
• Coach colleagues who pick up project work alongside their day job.
• Contribute to the design of the future technology and operating model, including AI initiatives.

Requirements:

• Track record delivering multiple concurrent projects in a portfolio, not a single large programme.
• Strong commercial grip: business cases, budgets, benefits tracking, vendor and contract management.
• Confident with senior stakeholders. Able to hold a room with partners, directors and Board members.
• Proven delivery in a technology or data environment. You understand what you are managing, not just the plan around it.
• Business change experience. You have taken people through a new system or way of working, not just gone live.
• Comfortable with ambiguity. You can start with a blank page and turn it into a plan.
• Sound judgement on what to elevate and what to resolve yourself.
• Able to plan, sequence and report at portfolio level, including packs for Board and ExCo.
• Comfortable in an environment where the project method is still being built, and willing to build it.
• Experience in professional services, accountancy or another partnership structure.
• Exposure to acquisition integration or post merger technology work.
• Practical understanding of AI adoption in a business setting, including its limits.
• Experience with data platform, CRM or practice management implementations.
• Formal qualification such as PRINCE2, APM, MSP or Agile, alongside real delivery evidence.
• Line management or mentoring of project staff.
• Familiarity with Microsoft 365, the Power Platform and modern data platforms such as Microsoft Fabric.

Behaviours

• Direct and diplomatic. Willing to challenge a weak plan or an unrealistic date.
• Owns outcomes, not activity.
• Brings clarity to messy problems and writes it down clearly.
• Curious about the business, not just the project.
• Builds trust quickly with people who do not report to them.

Core Benefits:

At Affinia, our culture is driven by ambition and a commitment to positively impact all the communities we serve. We are dedicated to the success, development, and wellbeing of our colleagues, helping them achieve their goals and seize the opportunities that come with our growth. Alongside a flexible and inclusive work environment, we offer the following core benefits:

• Opportunity to purchase 3 extra days holiday per year.
• Auto enrolment Pension Scheme with True Potential.
• Death in Service.
• Professional membership support.
• Paycare – claim money back for Dental / Optical / Professional Therapies
• Dress for your Diary Policy.

Please note that this job profile is not an exhaustive list of duties but merely an outline of the key components of the role. You may be required by your line manager to take on additional responsibilities when requested.

Affinia is committed to being an Equal Opportunity Employer. Our policy is unequivocal: we do not tolerate discrimination based on age, disability, sex, race, religion, or belief, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy, or maternity, or sexual orientation. We pride ourselves on being an inclusive organisation that actively promotes equality of opportunity for all, valuing the right mix of talent, skills, and potential. We welcome applications from a diverse range of candidates, and selection for roles is based solely on individual merit.

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