Program Manager in London

Reports to: Chief Operating Officer

Location: London/Hybrid

Contract type: Fixed Term Contract 12 Months

About us:

ScreenSkills is the industry-led skills body for the screen industries - film, television (including children's, unscripted and high-end), VFX, animation and games. We are supporting the continued growth and future innovation across the whole of the UK by investing in the skilled and inclusive workforce who are critical to the global success of the screen sector.

Role purpose:

ScreenSkills is delivering its 2025–2030 strategy to support a world‑leading, inclusive and agile screen workforce. This role provides organisational leadership across Strategic Projects, ensuring activity is sequenced, governed and resourced effectively. Alongside Strategy programme oversight, the role will also help establish the basic foundations of a Project Management Office (PMO) to strengthen delivery discipline, cross‑team coordination and portfolio‑level reporting throughout the organisation.

Key responsibilities:

• Strategic Project Leadership & Oversight
  • Lead day‑to‑day planning, tracking, oversight, and reporting of a programme of Strategic Projects derived from ScreenSkills’ Strategy and Annual Operating Plan activities.
  • Maintain the organisation‑wide roadmap of Strategic Projects, including dependencies, milestones, delivery risks and mitigations.
  • Ensure Strategic Projects deliver expected outcomes, integrating evaluation, workforce insight and stakeholder priorities.
• Delivery of Core Strategy Workstreams
  • Monitor actual expenditure and forecasted spend for Strategic Projects, aligned to the current budgets, working closely with senior colleagues in delivery and Finance teams.
  • Work with the CEO, Finance Director and the COO to produce board updates and strategic performance summaries.
  • Proposing and identifying risks and mitigations.
• Communications, Reporting & Engagement
  • Working effectively with all teams, particularly Finance.
  • Scheduling regular update meetings with key colleagues to ensure that they are up-to-date with what’s happening across delivery activities and alerting project leads and other senior colleagues to any potential issues (e.g. in the areas of staffing, resourcing, timelines, delivery against targets or reporting).
  • Provide delivery support for project groups as needed (including the cross‑sector stakeholder groups).
  • Engage with all internal and external stakeholders as needed.
• PMO Functional Development
  • Support the COO in maturing the project planning, management and coordination methodologies throughout the organization (the establishment of a basic PMO).
  • Lead organisation‑wide adoption of a suitable task/project management platform to act as a “single source of truth” for projects.
  • Help build organisational capability through coaching and mentoring colleagues involved in project delivery.
  • Develop consistent planning and reporting tools for use across projects.
  • Produce portfolio‑level dashboards and narrative reporting to improve oversight of performance, risks and resourcing across relevant projects.
  • Outline use cases for applicable tools, systems & processes.

Essential skills and experiences:

Essential Experience

• Proven experience managing complex organisational Strategic Projects.
• Experience establishing or contributing to PMO structures or delivery frameworks.
• Strong financial literacy and ability to manage budgets.
• Experience coordinating multi‑stakeholder delivery across sectors or agencies.

Essential Skills

• Excellent project and programme planning skills.
• Strong stakeholder engagement, relationship‑building and diplomacy.
• Ability to synthesise information and produce concise high‑quality reporting.
• Strong organisational, analytical and communication skills.

Desirable Experience

• Experience in skills, education, creative industries or public‑policy environments.

Attributes

• Highly organised, proactive and solutions-focused.
• Skilled at navigating ambiguity and complexity.
• Collaborative and committed to inclusive workforce development.

Corporate responsibilities of all ScreenSkills personnel:

• Take ownership of, and contribute to, internal and external communications activity both in their job role and as part of ScreenSkills’ overall strategic objectives.
• Demonstrate a personal commitment to embracing and promoting ScreenSkills’ positive approach to the achievement of acceptance, openness, and equality of opportunity at work for people from under-represented groups (e.g. such as those with disabilities and global majority backgrounds).
• Promote and develop individual and organisational activities which support and enhance environmental sustainability and health and safety objectives.
• Establish good working relationships with both internal and external customers and provide a high-quality service which meets their needs.
• Support yours and your colleagues’ activity through a commitment to effective and correct use of corporate tools and resources, including the ScreenSkills’ intranet for internal communications and authorised systems for contact management.

ScreenSkills is committed to diversity and equality of opportunity in all aspects of our work. We particularly welcome applications from under-represented groups such as returning parents or carers who are re-entering after a career break, women, people who are LGBTQ+, minority ethnic groups, with a disability, impairment, learning difference or long-term condition, with caring responsibilities, from different nations and regions, from a less advantaged socio-economic background as well as any other under-represented group.

This job description is not intended to be either prescriptive or exhaustive. It is issued as a framework to outline the main areas of responsibility at the time of writing.