Web and Design Project Manager in Manchester

Location: Remote, with occasional travel to our Manchester and Preston spaces

Salary: £32.5k – 37.5k per annum, depending on experience

Employment Type: Full-time, permanent

Reporting To: Head of Client Services

About the Role: We’re looking for a highly organised, commercially aware Web & Design Project Manager to help keep our web and design projects moving smoothly from first brief through to delivery, launch and handover. This is a central role within Soap Media. You’ll be responsible for making sure projects are properly briefed, scoped, planned, communicated, quality checked and delivered against agreed expectations. You’ll work closely with our designers, developers, SEO specialists, solutions architects and client services team to make sure the right people are involved at the right time, milestones are clear, risks are raised early, and clients feel confident throughout. You won’t be expected to be a specialist designer, developer or UX expert. Your role is to coordinate the specialists, keep delivery under control, hold the right people accountable, and make sure nothing important is missed between brief and delivery.

Key Responsibilities

• Project Delivery
• Lead and manage web and design projects from briefing through to completion.
• Translate project requirements into clear internal briefs, timelines and delivery plans.
• Work with designers, developers, SEO specialists and solutions architects to define scope, milestones and responsibilities.
• Keep projects moving across briefing, UX, design, development, content, QA, launch and handover.
• Monitor timelines, budgets and scope throughout delivery.
• Identify project risks early and escalate them clearly with proposed next steps.
• Manage client change requests against the agreed scope.
• Maintain clear project documentation so the team understands what has been agreed, what is outstanding and what happens next.
• Run project check-ins and retrospectives, ensuring actions are captured and followed through.
• Quality Control & Accountability
• Coordinate quality gates across design, development, content, SEO, responsiveness, accessibility and launch readiness.
• Ensure the relevant specialists complete their checks and sign off their areas before work is shared with clients.
• Carry out a final sense check as an additional safety net before key delivery points.
• Collate, clarify and assign feedback to the right people.
• Make sure outputs are reviewed against the original brief by the appropriate team members.
• Help improve project processes, QA workflows and handover standards over time.
• Client Communication
• Act as the main point of contact for assigned web and design projects.
• Keep clients informed with clear, timely and professional communication.
• Set expectations around timings, feedback, dependencies and approval points.
• Proactively identify and resolve issues before they escalate.
• Maintain confidence and momentum throughout each project.
• Support smooth handover into post-launch support, maintenance or ongoing retainers where relevant.
• Internal Coordination
• Coordinate designers, developers and specialists across multiple concurrent projects.
• Work closely with the Front End Lead, Head of Design, SEO team and Client Services team.
• Ensure the right people are involved at the right stages.
• Champion agreed processes and help the team follow them consistently.
• Act as an escalation point where blockers, delays or competing priorities need resolving.
• Support resourcing conversations by flagging upcoming demand, bottlenecks and delivery risks.
• Commercial & Operational Awareness
• Help ensure projects are delivered on time, within scope and within budget.
• Monitor project time and flag over-servicing, scope creep or delivery inefficiencies early.
• Ensure invoicing milestones are understood and raised at the right points.
• Support accurate time logging and project reporting.
• Identify opportunities for retained support, maintenance or wider Soap services where relevant.
• Feed useful project insight back into the business to improve future scoping, quoting and delivery.

What Success Looks Like

In this role, success means projects feel controlled, clients feel informed, and internal teams know exactly what is expected of them. It also means projects are delivered profitably, to a standard the team is proud of, and with quality that gives clients confidence in Soap as a long-term partner.

After 3 months, you should be:

• Confident in Soap’s web and design delivery process.
• Managing timelines, actions and communication with support.
• Building strong relationships with the internal team.
• Identifying where scope, timings or feedback could create risk.

After 6 months, you should be:

• Independently managing multiple web and design projects.
• Improving project visibility for clients and internal teams.
• Helping reduce last-minute issues through better planning and QA coordination.
• Supporting cleaner project handovers and stronger delivery consistency.

After 12 months, you should be:

• A trusted owner of web and design delivery.
• Actively improving processes and project profitability.
• Helping the team deliver more consistently and efficiently.
• Contributing to stronger client satisfaction and post-launch retention.

Required Skills & Experience

• Experience managing web, design, digital or marketing projects.
• Strong understanding of project briefing, scoping, timelines and delivery management.
• Knowledge of WordPress or custom CMS website projects.
• Experience managing client communication and expectations.
• Ability to coordinate multiple internal stakeholders across concurrent projects.
• Good understanding of how design, UX, development, SEO, content and QA contribute to digital projects.
• Strong organisational skills and attention to detail.
• Commercial awareness around scope, budgets, profitability and change requests.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.
• Confidence using project management, time-tracking or workflow tools.
• A proactive, solutions-driven approach to solving problems and removing blockers.

Desirable Skills & Experience

• Experience working in a digital agency environment.
• Familiarity with Jira, Tempo, Trello, Asana, ClickUp or similar project tools.
• Experience coordinating website QA, content entry or launch processes.
• Understanding of accessibility, Core Web Vitals, SEO basics and responsive design principles.
• Experience managing design collateral projects such as brochures, presentations, templates, social assets or campaign creative.
• Project management qualifications such as PRINCE2, Agile, APM or similar.

What You’ll Work On

You’ll help deliver a mixture of:

• New website projects.
• Website refreshes and migrations.
• Landing pages.
• Design collateral.
• Sales and presentation decks.
• Campaign creative.
• Social media templates.
• Email templates.
• Content and SEO-led website improvements.
• Ongoing client design and development requests.

What Makes a Soaperstar?

At Soap, we care about people who take ownership, communicate clearly and want to do great work without ego. You’ll fit in well if you:

• Take responsibility for outcomes, not just tasks.
• Care about clients feeling informed and looked after.
• Enjoy bringing order to complexity.
• Are comfortable challenging timelines, assumptions or unclear briefs when needed.
• Know how to hold people accountable without creating friction.
• Use process to make work better, not slower.
• Want to help a talented team deliver more consistently.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary, depending on experience.
• Remote working with occasional travel to Manchester and Preston.
• Supportive, collaborative team environment.
• Varied, high-quality web and design projects across different sectors.
• Development opportunities and clear progression pathways.
• The chance to play a key role in improving how projects are delivered across the agency.

Soap Media is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified people regardless of background.