Portfolio Demand Manager

The Portfolio Demand Manager will provide a single point of governance and control for all demand entering the Operations Department portfolio. This role ensures new client implementation requests, outsourced services and internal initiatives are consistently captured, categorised, prioritised, resourced, and monitored to align with Instem's strategic objectives. Working closely with the Director of PMO and Operations leadership, the Portfolio Demand Manager will oversee the end-to-end demand management lifecycle, balancing workloads across project teams, enabling transparent decision-making, and providing data-driven insights to optimise portfolio outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Oversee the intake of all new preclinical client implementation requests and internal initiatives across Operations.
• Ensure requests are complete, categorised (e.g., regulatory, client-driven, innovation, operational improvement), and aligned with strategic goals.
• Analyse business objectives, revenue recognition potential, and platform availability to guide initial sizing (T-shirt sizing) and categorisation.
• Establish and manage a consistent prioritisation framework to score and rank initiatives against strategic alignment, revenue impact, compliance, and risk reduction.
• Facilitate prioritisation and trade-off sessions with leadership to sequence work transparently.
• Maintain a clear pipeline of prioritised initiatives visible to stakeholders.
• Work with resource managers and PMO to match demand with delivery capacity and skill sets.
• Identify and escalate resource constraints, skill gaps, or overcommitments early.
• Recommend strategies such as deferral, reallocation, or outsourcing to balance demand and capacity.
• Produce executive dashboards and portfolio reports providing visibility into pipeline demand, active projects, benefits delivery, risks, dependencies, and portfolio health.
• Track demand throughout its lifecycle, from ideation to approval, allocation, and delivery handover.
• Provide forward-looking forecasting to anticipate peaks in client demand and enable proactive resourcing.
• Act as Governance Lead by ensuring demand decisions are made within agreed forums (Portfolio Board, Steering Committees).
• Provide data-driven insights to support decision-making and escalate prioritisation or resourcing conflicts for resolution.
• Ensure demand decisions are documented, communicated, and regularly reviewed.
• Partner with the BI team to drive insights from portfolio performance trends (e.g., delivery timelines, budget adherence, utilisation).
• Refine and evolve demand management frameworks, templates, and reporting standards.
• Capture lessons learned and embed a culture of proactive demand planning rather than reactive firefighting.

Qualifications

• Several years of proven experience in portfolio management, demand management, or portfolio analysis roles.
• Strong knowledge of demand intake, prioritisation frameworks, and capacity planning.
• Experience producing executive-level dashboards and portfolio reporting.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate data into insights.
• Excellent facilitation and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence at senior levels.
• Knowledge of project/programme management methodologies (e.g., PRINCE2, MSP, Agile, SAFe) is desirable.
• Experience working in complex, multi-service, multi-stakeholder environments (preferably Life Sciences / Tech / SaaS sector).

Benefits Package: Competitive Salary, Flexible Working (with one-off allowance and 2 Days in the office), Development & Opportunity (Personal & Technical), Private Medical (Optical & Dental options), Matching Contributory Pension, 25 Days Leave + Public Holidays + Buy and Sell Scheme, Life Insurance, Referral Scheme, Employee Assistance Program, Benefits Hub.