Head of Delivery in Preston

Head of Delivery (Hybrid or Remote with regular travel to Preston) – reporting to the Change Director, manage and drive the end‑to‑end delivery of our diverse project portfolio, ensuring all projects and programmes are completed on time, within budget, and to the highest quality standards. We will shape our path forward and support LPPA’s aspiration to be the provider of choice for public sector pensions administration.

A glance at the role: As demands upon our organisation have grown, we are strengthening our Change team with an exciting opportunity for a new Head of Delivery to join us. You will lead and empower a talented team of project and programme managers, fostering innovation, collaboration, and professional growth.

Responsibilities:

• Responsible for all programme and project delivery, monitoring timelines, and budgets, including overtime, change request expenditure, supplier costs, and deliverables, ensuring they meet quality standards and stakeholder expectations.
• Setting the vision and objectives for the delivery team, providing line management, and fostering professional development and ensuring all projects run seamlessly.
• Ensure project teams are proficient in agile/waterfall methodology and kept up to date with evolving project tools.
• Escalation points for all delivery blockers, raising both internally and externally.
• Oversees, reviews and collates all project reporting to feed into Boards – i.e. C&T, Exec, advancing through AI.
• Contributes to creating the Change roadmap.
• Delivers in line with the Change roadmap and holds Project Managers accountable.
• Projects all adhere to LPPA Change methodology.
• Responsible for ensuring all projects have robust Communications and Business readiness plans in place for all deliveries.
• Responsible for Client Comms, with regular meetings to cover comms, planning and risk mitigation.
• Chairs weekly Project Priority call across the business.
• Chairs the change portfolio quarterly meeting – systems, cements strong working relationships.
• Chairs monthly Project update call with all PMS – plus HOCG.
• Project capability management, ensuring there is always cross‑skilling and knowledge transfer within the team.
• Leading and mentoring the delivery team to ensure high performance.
• Responsible for ensuring that the delivery team have the best tools for the job: looking at planning, risk and reporting.
• Identifying and mitigating potential internal and external risks and issues that may impact project delivery or the wider change.
• Review and refine project delivery, comms and reporting, fostering a culture of continuous improvement, internally and externally.
• Work closely with the Head of Change Governance to create a solid reliable team.

What we need from you:

• The ability to successfully deliver multiple projects in a fast‑paced environment.
• A proactive, self‑motivated team player who can work independently with minimal supervision, manage a high personal workload with multiple deadlines and continually strive for improvements in quality, efficiency and presentation.
• Must have relevant experience of working in a programme/project/change management role and demonstrate the successful delivery of large projects as well as day‑to‑day operational requests from the business.
• Experience of implementing new systems and data migration is essential.
• Ability to influence teams to work collaboratively to resolve issues and remove barriers to change.
• Engaging and inspiring highly visible leadership across the business.
• Lead, motivate and performance manage direct reports and other employees.
• Actively coach and inspire, listening with curiosity and building an inclusive environment.
• Create a culture of giving and receiving timely feedback across the business.
• Effective communication and leadership skills, including the ability to influence and build good working relationships at all levels, both internally and externally.
• Excellent level of numerical, analytical, ICT and report writing skills to assist in the production of business cases, management of project budgets, communication of key messages and to facilitate discussions and decision making.
• Proficiency in MS Office (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint). Knowledge of Microsoft Visio and Access is advantageous.

Nice to have:

• Experience of working in Pension Administration would be desirable, although not essential.
• Knowledge of working in the public sector is preferred but not essential.

Working with and upholding our values:

• Working together.
• Committed to excellence.
• Doing the right thing.
• Forward thinking.

What we can offer you:

• Competitive salary circa £70k – £75k DOE and inclusion in our annual bonus scheme.
• 30 days’ holiday, plus bank holidays and 2 additional concessionary days and ½ day for your Birthday, with the ability to buy and sell leave.
• Access to an excellent pension scheme (Local Government Pension Scheme) with generous employer contributions.
• Access to Health or Dental Plan.
• Access to our Enhanced Employee Assistance Programme for when you or your family might need some support.
• Access to our bespoke Reward Discount Scheme – ‘Your Perk Site’.
• Opportunities to attend Wellbeing webinars and social events.
• Daily free fruit and snacks available to you in our office.
• Free Car Parking in Preston City Centre.

Job Details:

• Seniority level: Associate
• Employment type: Full‑time
• Job function: Administrative