Senior Project Manager - Pharmaceutical Operations in Manchester

We\’re seeking an experienced Senior Project Manager to lead delivery and governance across a portfolio of strategic initiatives within a global pharmaceutical development and manufacturing organisation. This is a high-impact role for someone who can bring structure, rigour, and delivery discipline into a complex, technical environment. You\’ll work alongside senior functional leaders to align multiple workstreams, drive project performance, and embed best-practice project management processes. The ideal candidate will have a background in pharma, life sciences, or complex technical delivery, with a proven ability to operate across multiple concurrent projects and influence senior stakeholders.

What You\’ll Do

• Lead project governance and planning across several cross-functional initiatives in process improvement, manufacturing, capital expansion, and digital transformation.
• Develop and maintain integrated programme plans, RAID logs, and milestone trackers.
• Establish and run consistent reporting rhythms, providing clear visibility of progress, risks, and benefits.
• Drive accountability and delivery discipline – ensuring commitments are met, issues escalated, and outcomes tracked.
• Coach and mentor technical project leads to build internal project management capability.
• Foster strong relationships with senior stakeholders across technical, digital, and operational functions.
• Promote structured frameworks, standard templates, and transparent communication.

Qualifications

• Experienced Senior Project Manager or light Programme Manager, ideally with exposure to pharmaceutical or life sciences environments.
• Strong grasp of structured methodologies (e.g. PMF, PRINCE2, Agile, or hybrid approaches).
• Confident operating in matrixed, science-led, and consensus-driven organisations.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and influencing skills.
• Comfortable balancing delivery focus with a coaching, enabling mindset.