Senior 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 Senior Programme Manager in Programme Management and Programme Management Office delivery, you will have experience delivering key roles in major and complex capital programmes, across complex construction environments within sectors such as Central Government, Industrial, Life Sciences, Data Centres and Defence. You contribute to the successful delivery of these programmes on behalf of clients, ensuring strategic objectives are translated into measurable business outcomes. Working across multidisciplinary teams and multiple workstreams, you provide leadership and delivery management throughout the programme lifecycle, driving execution, managing interdependencies and ensuring alignment between programme delivery and wider business goals.

You act as a trusted advisor to clients and senior stakeholders, providing intelligent direction, operational leadership and skilled challenge in complex delivery environments. Through the establishment of robust governance, programme controls and delivery frameworks, you maintain visibility of programme performance, manage risks and opportunities, and ensure effective decision-making to support successful outcomes. You are a credible and accomplished programme delivery professional with a proven ability to deliver programmes. You bring good construction programme experience, with the ability to operate efficiently and effectively between programme and project-level detail, maintain strong key stakeholder relationships and drive progress and successful programme outcomes.

Key Responsibilities:

• Programme Leadership Support: Operationally lead the successful execution of small to medium scale transformation/real estate programmes and materially impact the delivery of large-scale programmes, ensuring measurable benefits. Assist the Programme Lead in setting the vision and direction of the commission. Empower and inspire the programme team to achieve success.
• Programme Governance & Control: Establish and embed frameworks for management and control to ensure programme rigor and compliance.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Communication: Establish and embed robust processes for engaging and managing programme stakeholders through an effective stakeholder management plan. Drive clarity and clear communication across stakeholder groups. Create professional presentations and status reports for leadership and governance forums.
• Financial Oversight: Support the implementation, maintenance and monitoring of robust processes to manage and report on all financial aspects of the programme.
• Risk, Health & Safety Considerations: Lead on the identification of programme risks and integration of appropriate safeguards, including health and safety.
• Operational Leadership: Oversee the successful management of programme logs/registers, reporting and data quality, governance and secretariat duties, and effective programme communication.
• People & Team: Act as a first-class colleague, taking a lead and positively contributing to the culture of internal and commission teams and demonstrating leadership in internal team growth. Promote a collaborative culture focused on high performance, innovation and continuous learning and our One Business culture.

Qualifications

This is a Senior 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.
• Proven experience in programme management, with demonstrable achievement of benefits and outcomes for clients/employers.
• Good command of current programme management frameworks (e.g., MSP, PMI) and disciplined governance practices.
• Project delivery background with progression into programme delivery within a construction environment.
• Understanding of construction project delivery models, procurement routes and contracts (NEC, JCT).
• Understanding of project controls methodologies and application including schedule management, cost control and risk and opportunity management at a project and programme level.
• Experience engaging with clients positively – demonstrating strong communication skills including presentation of data to inform effective decision-making.
• Good stakeholder engagement and communication skills, with experience in dealing with third parties and customers.
• Understanding of required health and safety activities and legislative requirements (e.g. CDM and Building Safety Act).
• Committed to high performance in team behaviours and talent development within the organization, supporting professional growth of others in the team and among clients’ teams.
• 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.
• Education to a degree/postgraduate level in a relevant technical discipline (e.g. Engineering, Construction Management, Quantity Surveying) 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.