Programme Manager in Manchester

At Turner & Townsend we’re passionate about making the difference. That means delivering better outcomes for our clients, helping our people to realise their potential, and doing our part to create a prosperous society. For 75 years we have been leading the delivery of major transformational programmes. Our success at realising outcomes for clients has resulted in significant growth. Every day we help our major global clients deliver ambitious Net Zero programmes from over 110 offices worldwide. Further to this success we are now facing a new wave of growth to achieve our ambitious 2025 vision. To achieve this, we need great people who are passionate about both delivering great outcomes to our clients and contributing to our future vision. This is made entirely possible through our entrepreneurial culture, allowing employees of all levels to directly influence the business and to own their career.

The world is changing, and we have a responsibility to support that change, helping drive it and be part of it. Through the commitment, capability and care our team brings, we build trust between clients, suppliers, governments, and society. Delivering better outcomes that have a positive impact on the world around us. We work smarter to face the challenges of the future; bringing the clarity that helps teams realise their full potential across the real estate, infrastructure, and natural resources sectors.

As a Programme Manager in Real Estate Programme Services you drive successful delivery of transformational capital programmes across real estate and construction environments within sectors such as Central Government, Health, Education, Life Sciences, Data Centres and Defence. Through leadership of small to medium programmes, or supporting large scale transformation initiatives within a multidisciplinary team, you ensure client outcomes are achieved and benefits realised. You apply industry best practice methodologies across the programme lifecycle including proactive management of risks, issues, dependencies, change, planning, governance, stakeholder engagement and performance management. You are collaborative and commercially aware with the ability to balance strategic programme objectives with day-to-day delivery challenges, driving performance and creating value for clients.

Key Responsibilities

• Programme Delivery: Manage the successful execution of small to medium scale real estate programmes, or support large-scale transformation initiatives through ownership and execution of assigned functions/elements of large-scale programmes, ensuring measurable benefits.
• Leadership & Vision: Positively contribute to the set up and delivery of the direction of the programme by the programme team, empowering and inspiring teams to achieve success.
• Programme Governance and Controls: Apply industry best practice programme management methodologies, governance and controls within a real estate environment consistently and in the right way. This includes maintaining programme logs/registers, performance reporting (e.g. presentations and status reports for leadership and governance forums) data quality and secretariat duties (preparing meeting materials, action tracking).
• Stakeholder Engagement and Communication: Support robust processes for engaging and managing programme stakeholders such as stakeholder registers, communication plans.
• Financial Oversight: Support the management and oversight of programme-level financial management processes, ensuring transparent and effective reporting.
• Risk, Health & Safety: Understand and ensure compliance with governance and risk management requirements, instilling confidence in senior managers. Understand and control measures to proactively manage programme-wide health and safety risks, ensuring successful safeguards are in place.
• People & Team: Positively contribute to the culture of internal and commission teams and contributing to internal team growth and our One Business culture. Promote a collaborative culture focused on high performance, innovation and continuous learning.

Qualifications

This is a Professional level role. To excel in this role, you will have:

• Ability to operate in a fast‑paced, high‑performing real estate programme environment, demonstrating attention to detail, leadership qualities and strong organisational capability.
• Experience in programme management, with demonstrable achievement of benefits and outcomes for clients/employers.
• Project delivery background with progression into programme management within a real estate/construction environment.
• Accreditation or working knowledge of programme management methodologies, ideally within the Real Estate sector.
• Awareness of construction project delivery models, procurement routes and contracts (NEC, JCT).
• Strong stakeholder engagement and communication skills, with the ability to successfully perform governance duties.
• Analytical capability, commercial acumen and comfort with programme data, dashboards, and reporting systems.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite and programme management tools, reporting systems and digital platforms, with a proactive approach to data, innovation and digital tools and strategy, including the use of AI.
• Degree or postgraduate qualification in a relevant field, desirable.

Additional Information

Our inspired people share our vision and mission. We provide a great place to work, where each person has the opportunity and voice to effect change. We want our people to succeed both in work and life. To support this we promote a healthy, productive, and flexible working environment. At Turner & Townsend, we celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We encourage applications from all sectors of the community, and we strongly believe that this diversity is what creates great solutions for our clients, bringing together people with different ideas and skills who want to push boundaries.

In celebration of our diversity and to keep this agenda at the forefront of what we do, we have several internal networks, such as LGBT+, Diversity & Inclusion, and Race & Ethnicity which create a safe space for employees to express themselves and to drive change.

SOX control responsibilities may be part of this role, which are to be adhered to where applicable. It is strictly against Turner & Townsend policy for candidates to pay any fee in relation to our recruitment process. No recruitment agency working with Turner & Townsend will ask candidates to pay a fee at any time. Any unsolicited resumes/CVs submitted through our website or to Turner & Townsend personal e-mail accounts, are considered property of Turner & Townsend and are not subject to payment of agency fees. In order to be an authorised Recruitment Agency/Search Firm for Turner & Townsend, there must be a formal written agreement in place and the agency must be invited, by the Recruitment Team, to submit candidates for review.