Project and Resource Manager in Bristol

Working closely with project teams and senior leaders, you will ensure that key projects are rigorously planned, appropriately resourced, and effectively managed throughout their lifecycle. You will coordinate activity across multiple workstreams, maintain clear oversight of progress against milestones, and proactively identify and resolve issues that could hinder delivery. You will also play a central role in identifying, assessing, and managing risks to keep projects on track and achieving their intended outcomes. Alongside strong technical skills, you will build and sustain the relationships needed to understand priorities, influence decisions, and help ensure our work delivers real benefits for students.

About us: We are the independent regulator of higher education in England. We aim to ensure that every student, whatever their background, has a fulfilling experience of higher education that enriches their lives and careers. We’re proud of our people, our culture and the benefits we offer. We care about supporting and developing our staff. At the OfS we want to create a welcoming and engaging working environment which is free from discrimination. We’re looking for skilled, committed people who care about students and their experience of higher education. Join us and you’ll be part of an energetic, forward-looking organisation with high ambitions and big opportunities for our people.

About the role: In the role you will:

• Shape work that directly benefits students by helping ensure that some of the OfS’s most important projects deliver meaningful impact, influencing how the higher education sector operates in the interests of students.
• Ensure projects are well-planned, properly resourced and delivered effectively, enabling teams and senior leaders to take informed decisions and keeping complex work on track.
• Connect work across individual projects, supporting cross-organisational alignment and ensuring value for the taxpayers and institutions that fund our work.
• Influence senior stakeholders and champion effective delivery, helping to embed more consistent, confident project management approaches across the organisation.
• Be encouraged to innovate, improve, and apply a range of delivery methodologies, in an environment that supports continuous learning.

About you: We’re looking for someone who:

• Has substantial experience leading complex projects, with responsibility for end‑to‑end delivery.
• Has deep expertise across a range of project and operational delivery methodologies and the judgement to deploy the right tools and techniques for the situation at hand.
• Coaches and supports others to build project and programme delivery capability, enabling colleagues to apply appropriate delivery methods with confidence.
• Is confident engaging senior stakeholders and able to facilitate purposeful discussions.
• Is able to deliver difficult messages with tact and understanding, ensuring decisions are implemented and trade-offs are understood.
• Understands the wider organisational context, recognising interdependencies and anticipating risks.
• Works proactively and autonomously, taking the initiative and driving progress without close supervision.
• Is comfortable operating in uncertain environments, adapting quickly as priorities evolve.
• Shows a commitment to continuous learning and improvement, reflects critically but constructively on experience, and contributes to the development of delivery capability across teams.

Application process: As part of the initial application process, please answer the following questions, uploading your response in a single document which includes a copy of your CV. Imagine you join the OfS as a Project and Resource Manager, inheriting a mixed portfolio. What do you do in your first 10 days, and why? [max 500 words] Please explain how your experience in previous roles has informed your response. [max 250 words]

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn.

Working for us: The OfS regulates the higher education sector on behalf of all students. We value diversity and the wealth of perspectives, experience and ideas that it brings to our work, and we strive to embed equality of opportunity in everything we do. We recruit based on fair and open competition and welcome applications from candidates regardless of age, disability, race and ethnicity, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. Flexibility is important to the OfS, as we recognise that it can enable people to work more effectively. A set of organisation-wide principles shape our approach to flexible and hybrid working, which our teams then use as guidance on how they deliver their business goals. This would usually mean working from the office for two or three days in a typical week. To attract the widest possible field of qualified applicants, flexible working – for example job share and part-time working – apply to this role.

We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is accessible to everyone. If you require any reasonable adjustments to support you through the application stage, please contact us at recruitmentteam@officeforstudents.org.uk and we will be happy to help.

Closing date for applications: Monday 15 June 2026 at noon. Interviews: from week commencing Monday 22 June 2026. As part of the interview process, candidates will be asked to speak to their application responses, as well as complete a task. Further details will be shared with shortlisted candidates ahead of the interview.