Senior Project Manager - Digital

Job Description

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Job Details

Salary: Competitive per annum

Hours: 37.5 per week, Monday to Friday

Location: Hybrid – VHQ, Crawley

Contract: 16 month fixed term contract

Closing Date: 20th October 2025

At Virgin Atlantic Airways, we believe that everyone can take on the world, and it\’s our vision to become the most loved travel company. As we embark on this next exciting stage of our journey, we\’re harnessing our spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation to challenge the status quo.

Join our team of forward-thinkers who approach the world with a different lens. We value individuals who are vocal about driving positive change and are willing to dive into both big and small tasks. If you\’re ready to take your career to new heights, this opportunity is for you.

In a nutshell

Virgin Atlantic have the ambition to be the most loved travel company. Key to this ambition is the transformation of Virgin Atlantic\’s digital estate to support end to end user journey\’s across the whole travel ribbon.

Day to day

• Lead digital initiatives that require coordination with internal and external scrum teams, suppliers and partners.
• Manage complex stakeholder relationships, ensuring clear communication and alignment of project objectives with business goals.
• Present complex technical information to diverse audiences, including non-technical stakeholders.
• Act as a liaison between technical teams, business units, and external partners, ensuring collaboration and mutual understanding
• Implement risk management strategies, identifying potential risks, issues and dependencies and developing contingency plans.
• Make informed decisions based on thorough analysis and strategic thinking, addressing complex challenges.
• Oversee project budgets, ensuring efficient allocation and utilisation of resources and reporting to PMO.
• Manage relationships with suppliers and contractors, ensuring value and alignment with project objectives, generating Statement of Works and Change Requests as required.
• Ensure projects comply with relevant regulations, including data privacy laws and industry‑specific guidelines.
• Oversee data management strategies, ensuring the security and integrity of data used in digital projects

About You

• Bachelor\’s or master\’s degree in a relevant field such as Business Management, Information Technology, Computer Science, or similar
• Proven track record of successfully managing large‑scale digital projects from inception to completion.
• Strong knowledge of Agile and Lean methodologies.
• Experience in managing budgets, timelines, and project scopes effectively.
• Experience in stakeholder management, with the ability to build and maintain strong relationships with a variety of internal and external stakeholders.
• Skilled in risk management and contingency planning.
• Strong leadership skills with experience in leading cross‑functional teams in a collaborative environment.
• A track record of maintaining delivery momentum in challenging environments.
• Relevant certifications like Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), PRINCE2, or Agile certifications.
• Understanding of software development life cycles, web technologies, and web development processes.
• Understanding of the regulatory environment related to digital projects, including data privacy laws and industry‑specific regulations.

Our differences make us stronger

Our customers come from all walks of life and so do our colleagues. That\’s why we\’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer and actively encourage applications from all backgrounds. At Virgin Atlantic, we believe everyone can take on the world – no matter your age, gender, gender identity, gender expression, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disabilities, religion, or beliefs. We celebrate difference and everything that makes our colleagues unique by upholding an inclusive environment in which we can all thrive. So that everyone at Virgin Atlantic can be themselves and know they belong.

To make your journey with us accessible and individual to you, we encourage you to let us know if you\’d like a little extra help with your application, or if you have any individual requirements at any stage along your recruitment journey. We are here to support you, so please reach out to our team, (recruitment@fly.virgin.com) feeling confident that we\’ve got your individual considerations covered.

At Virgin Atlantic, our leaders empower teams to thrive through collaboration, innovation, and excellence. Explore our Leadership Recipe and discover the 20 core ingredients that define what it means to lead with us, driving our mission to be the most loved travel company and achieve sustainable profit. Want to learn more? Click here

Responsibilities

Budget accountability: No budget accountability associated with this role

Core responsibilities: Deliver defined function objectives within established policy or planning frameworks, identifying solutions for improvement ;Singular authority in a specialist area or sub-area can be a specialism within a specialism, have a very deep understanding of one area;Influence over policy and process.

Key responsibilities:

Project Summary (Time allocation – 10%) Experience of preparing the Project Summary with the Project Sponsor and Value Stream Lead. You will understand the business benefits and value being delivered by the project and will be able to clearly articulate these in the project Summary. A financial appendix will be produced in partnership with the Finance Business Partner and Value Stream Lead, using the forecasts you have gathered through cost estimation on CAPEX and OPEX. You will be required to complete your Finance Tracker and Perform in readiness for the Leadership Team level stakeholders every fortnight Estimating / Planning Producing well considered high level plans articulating the outline scope and demonstrating the strategic objectives for this. When required you will produce detailed plans for the project activity (using a delivery-based approach) ensuring that the projects critical path, milestone and key dependencies are clearly identified, communicated and shown within the overall project plans. Assist other Project Managers, who have less experienced, creating project plans and estimating. . Effective Project Delivery (Time allocation – 45%) You will lead the overall direction and delivery of the assigned project activity in an effective and inspired manner, ensuring that all key teams / people are involved from start to finish and that performance targets and delivery expectations are made clear.

Stakeholder and Supplier Relationships (Time allocation – 15%) You will have experience of identifying and engaging key stakeholders at the start of the project lifecycle and creating a stakeholder management plan. You will have experience of building trust and a collaborative framework with project stakeholders You will have experience of managing the expectations of the stakeholders during the project, highlighting any variances to the original plan and escalating these as needed. You will have experience of ensuring that stakeholders are regularly updated on the project\’s status and managing their expectations throughout. You will have experience of ensuring that the business area / department are effectively prepared for the changes in system and business process well ahead of time whilst giving appropriate support and training. . Project Control and Compliance (Time allocation – 20%) Lead and maintain the review of the controls and compliance aspects of the allocated projects so that they remain on target Lead and maintain a \’Risks and Issues\’ log ensuring that appropriate items are captured and identify mitigating actions, ensuring their resolution in conjunction with the relevant stakeholder(s) Management and control of the project finances by measuring and tracking against the allocated project budget, reconciling the spend versus budget on a fortnightly basis in line with Perform reporting and to show actual, committed, forecast to completion. Manage the raising, receipting and approval of any project level Purchase Order You will work closely with the Value Stream Lead, colleagues from other technology teams, members of the Finance team and the ePMO to ensure that the projects are tracked and monitored and ensure that relevant Governance Boards receive regular progress updates. As required support epic owner in readiness for PI event Project Management Reporting You will have experience of creating Steering Board presentations as well as Project Status Reports. You will have experience of presenting to Senior Stakeholders (e.g. Directors, VP\’s, SVP, EVP & CEO). . Mentoring and Coaching, Practice Strategy and Maturing the Practice (Time allocation – 10%) As a Senior Project Manager, you will take part in VAA\’s Mentoring and Coaching activities within The Practice. This mentoring and coaching will ensure that knowledge is transferred to other Project Managers, and the Project Delivery Community (this may include others within Technology and the business). You will take part in VAA\’s Technology & Transformation Function, contributing to definition of our strategy and goals, defining and disseminating new templates or techniques. Developing the community and effectiveness of delivery in line with requirements whilst incorporating ownership of your own development. Lead Practice Development sessions, coordinating shared development planning/training and setting practice development goals and tracking progress against them

Line management responsibilities: Accountable for the budget and management of the team including performance reviews, recruitment, discipline, termination

Qualifications

• Minimum 2+ years\’ experience years of end to end Project Management experience or equivalent
• A formal qualification as a Project Manager e.g. PRINCE2, APMP or PMP would be an advantage
• Practical / Technical Knowledge
• The individual will have extensive hands on practical experience of delivering complex and large-scale Projects and Programmes. He/she will have experience across most of the key accountability areas identified below, with spikes of particularly deep experience. He/she will also have good communication, influencing and change management skills and commercial acumen, so that he/she can effectively partner with senior stakeholders across our business.
• Planning / Organising and Integrating knowledge
• Most of your time will be focused on driving the delivery of discrete projects with strong technology components, with contributions from permanent and contractor resources month to month (i.e. typical frequency of Steering Groups) and day to day.
• Typical Planning Cycle
• He/she will typically work on a monthly planning cycle while also retaining a close focus on the overall Project/Programme delivery (timescale will often be up to a year or more in length). Please note the Planning Cycle will depend on project delivery approach