Senior Project Manager (Maritime) in Hampshire

Programme Name: Maritime

Location: Farnborough, with flexibility to work from home and travel to customer sites dependent on business demands.

Role Overview: Leidos UK is seeking an accomplished Senior Project Manager to lead major workstreams within a high‑profile UK military boat‑building programme. You will be accountable for the delivery of engineering, procurement, outfit, commissioning, commercial management, and stakeholder engagement, operating within complex delivery environments and influencing programme‑level decisions. You will lead by example, fostering an inclusive and collaborative environment across all delivery partners and stakeholders, including our strategic boat outfit supplier. This role carries significant responsibility for shaping delivery strategy, driving performance across multi‑disciplinary teams, and ensuring the successful integration of advanced maritime systems for the UK Armed Forces.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Initially, you will oversee the success detailed design, outfit and sea trials of Sea Dagger (Block 0) with our strategic shipyard partner.
• Longer term you will work with the Leidos National Security & Defence (NS&D) leadership team to secure additional opportunities across the Maritime portfolio.
• Own delivery of the major project phases across design, build, integration, sea trials, and acceptance.
• Provide leadership to a multi‑entity (Leidos, boat outfitter, supply chain, customer) management team across all functional disciplines.
• Influence stakeholder expectations, ensuring clarity of scope, requirements, and delivery outcomes.
• Support contract negotiations, supplier agreements, and commercial risk management.
• Drive project decision‑making during the whole lifecycle, ensuring risks, dependencies, and constraints are proactively managed.
• Act as the principal project management interface with internal and external stakeholders.
• Lead programme reviews, technical boards, and commercial discussions.
• Lead assurance activities including design reviews, quality gates, trials readiness, and acceptance milestones.
• Oversee project budgets, forecasts, and financial performance at a senior level.
• Ensure robust cost control, value for money delivery, and alignment with contractual obligations.
• Ensure adherence to defence, maritime, and safety regulations across all project activities.
• Champion continuous improvement and lessons‑learned across the programme.
• Collaborate closely with production, procurement, quality and project management teams.
• Support resource planning, capability development, and workforce readiness.
• Oversee the change process including configuration control throughout the lifecycle.
• Ensure adherence to the Leidos safety, environmental and quality standards during delivery of your programmes.
• Mentor and guide project managers, coordinators, and junior delivery staff.
• Foster a high‑performance culture focused on accountability, support and empowerment.
• Champion Leidos values of integrity, innovation, inclusion, agility, collaboration and commitment.

Skills Required:

• Able to communicate complex issues clearly to non‑technical stakeholders.
• Mentor junior project managers and support capability development across the organisation.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and negotiation skills.

Personal attributes:

• Strong leadership presence with the ability to influence at all levels.
• Excellent problem‑solving skills and sound engineering judgement.
• Clear communicator with the ability to simplify complex technical issues.
• Transparent, approachable and ambassador for collaborative teamwork across the whole enterprise including suppliers, stakeholders and customer(s).
• Resilient, organised, and comfortable operating in a high‑stakes defence environment.

Familiarity with common project toolsets including:

• JIRA
• Collaboration application such as SharePoint, MS Team and OneDrive
• AI application such as Co‑Pilot
• Windchill

Essential Qualifications & Experience:

• Professional project management certification (e.g. APM).
• Degree in a project management, engineering or related discipline.
• Strong commercial acumen, including contract and supplier management.
• Extensive experience within a prime contractor or major defence integrator environment.
• Leading major subcontractors on complex defence programmes.
• In maritime, naval systems, shipbuilding, or high‑integrity engineering environments.
• Managing multi‑million‑pound projects with diverse technical teams.

Desirable Qualifications & Experience:

• Knowledge of vessel trials, acceptance processes, or transition to in‑service support.
• Chartered status (CEng or equivalent) or working towards it.
• Experience with military small craft, patrol vessels, or specialist naval platforms.
• Knowledge of combat systems integration.
• Experience working with UK shipyards or defence primes.

Location: UK (home location flexible, TBC: occasional travel to the US or Europe - no more than 1 or 2 visits per year); Approximately 50% hybrid working with regular travel to Leidos sites (for example Farnborough, London or Whiteley) and supplier facilities (including SW Wales).

Clearance: Must be eligible for UK Security Clearance (SC or higher; DV desirable).

What we do for you: At Leidos we are PASSIONATE about customer success, UNITED as a team and INSPIRED to make a difference. We offer meaningful and engaging careers, a collaborative culture, and support for your career goals, all while nurturing a healthy work‑life balance. We provide an employment package that attracts, develops and retains only the best in talent.

Our reward scheme includes:

• Contributory Pension Scheme
• Private Medical Insurance
• 33 days Annual Leave (including public and privilege holidays)
• Access to Flexible benefits (including life assurance, health schemes, gym memberships, annual buy and sell holidays and a cycle to work scheme)
• Flexi-Time Working

Commitment to Diversity: We welcome applications from every part of the community and are committed to a truly diverse and inclusive culture. We foster a sense of belonging, welcoming all perspectives and contributions, and providing equal access to opportunities and resources for everyone. If you have a disability or need any reasonable adjustments during the application and selection stages please let us know, and we will respond in a way that best fits your needs.

Who We Are: Leidos UK & EUROPE – we work to make the world safer, healthy, and more efficient through technology, engineering and science. Leidos is a growing company delivering innovative technology and solutions focused on safeguarding critical capabilities and transformation in frontline services. Our work in the United Kingdom includes addressing some of the most complex problems in defence, healthcare, government, safety and security, and transportation.

What Makes Us Different: Purpose: you can use your passion and abilities at Leidos to keep the people you care about safe. We are at the forefront of machine learning, AI, cyber security and solutions. Using your skills in the technology frontline by helping to build a safer world. You can inspire change.

Collaboration: having flexibility to do your job is one of our core benefits, enabling you to become part of our extraordinary team. We have been empowering our people to work flexibly for years. Whether you work from home, the office or on customer sites, we will give you the digital tools and the flexibility to work smarter and align your needs and ours.

People: Leidos empowers people from every background to be themselves and gives you the tools to learn new skills by enabling growth whilst developing. We believe that extraordinary people need opportunities to grow, to be inspired and to inspire others. At Leidos, we invest in technical academies, career rotations and a career development plans that enhance your future.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail.