Senior Project Manager

About LRQA 

LRQA is a leading global assurance partner. We help clients manage risk and build safer, more secure and more sustainable businesses through certification, inspection, cybersecurity and advisory services. Digital Transformation is modernising the technology, products and platforms that underpin these services, and predictable, outcome-led delivery is central to that effort. 

Role purpose 

The Senior Project Manager is a senior delivery role within the DSD/Universe programme, operating as a Delivery Manager inside agile, product-led squads. It is accountable for the end-to-end delivery of one or more products or workstreams, turning programme priorities and product goals into working software and realised outcomes. 

The role runs delivery day to day: planning and running the squads’ work, maintaining delivery momentum, and managing dependencies, risk and change. It combines agile ways of working with the control and governance the programme requires, and measures progress by value delivered rather than activity completed. 

This is a hands-on, outcome-driven role focused on enabling delivery teams rather than administering process. It reports to the Programme Lead, DSD, and works closely with Product, Business Analysis, Development, Architecture and Infrastructure/DevOps to deliver the programme’s priorities predictably and at pace. 

Key responsibilities 

Delivery leadership 

• Own end-to-end delivery of one or more products or workstreams within the programme, to agreed scope, time, cost and quality. 

• Plan and run the squads’ delivery, including sprint planning, backlog flow, release planning and delivery commitments, working with Product and the development teams. 

• Translate programme priorities and product goals into clear delivery plans, with milestones, dependencies and measurable outcomes. 

• Drive momentum and accountability across multi-disciplinary squads (Product, Business Analysis, developers, QA and specialist roles), keeping them aligned and removing impediments. 

• Run the delivery cadence and team ceremonies (planning, stand-ups, reviews and retrospectives) and ensure they remain effective. 

Dependencies, risk and control 

• Manage cross-squad and cross-product dependencies, keeping a clear view of the critical path and delivery constraints. 

• Own the delivery-level RAID position, surfacing risks, issues and dependencies early and managing them transparently. 

• Anticipate issues and remove blockers to maintain delivery momentum. 

• Manage change to scope and plan pragmatically, protecting outcomes and value. 

Governance, reporting and escalation 

• Provide clear, decision-oriented delivery updates focused on value, risk and confidence, not activity. 

• Feed the programme’s governance, contributing to programme reporting, steering packs and milestone reviews with clear, traceable status. 

• Work within the programme’s governance and the VMO’s delivery standards, applying them proportionately. 

• Escalate to the Programme Lead promptly, with clear options and a recommended course of action. 

Financials and resourcing 

• Support budget and forecast management for the products or workstreams, tracking spend against plan and raising financial pressures early with the Programme Lead, who typically owns the budget. 

• Take direct responsibility for budget and forecast on smaller, self-contained projects. 

• Maintain a clear view of squad capacity and capability, highlighting constraints and supporting prioritisation and trade-off decisions. 

• Manage delivery through internal squads and, where used, external suppliers, holding them to plan and quality. 

Value, outcomes and adoption 

• Keep delivery aligned to business value and measurable outcomes, tracking when benefits are expected to be realised and highlighting slippage. 

• Work with product, service owners and business teams so that new capabilities are adopted and deliver measurable benefit. 

• Support release, change and communication activity to ready teams and users for adoption. 

Continuous improvement 

• Promote an outcome-focused delivery culture across the squads, measuring progress by value achieved. 

• Embed agile ways of working, retrospectives and feedback loops to improve delivery quality and predictability. 

• Contribute to the maturity of delivery practice across the programme and wider portfolio, sharing lessons learned and effective practice. 

Working relationships 

• Work closely with the Programme Lead, Product, Business Analysis, Development, the Enterprise Architect and Solution Architects, and Infrastructure/DevOps to turn priorities into delivered outcomes. 

• Build trusted relationships across business, technology and delivery teams, providing a clear link between strategy, delivery and operations. 

Key outcomes 

• One or more products or workstreams delivered to agreed scope, time, cost and quality, predictably. 

• Predictable, controlled delivery, with dependencies managed and blockers cleared. 

• Risks, issues and trade-offs surfaced early and managed transparently. 

• Clear, decision-oriented delivery status the programme can act on. 

• Delivery aligned to measurable outcomes and value, with benefits landing as expected. 

• Squads that are focused, motivated and improving, with agile ways of working embedded. 

• A strong delivery partnership with Product, Business Analysis, Development and Architecture. 

Experience and capability 

• Delivery leadership: proven experience leading end-to-end delivery of complex digital or software products and workstreams in a multi-stakeholder environment. 

• Agile and product-led delivery: strong, hands-on experience running delivery in agile, product-led squads (Scrum or Kanban), balancing agile flexibility with programme-level control. 

• Change management: Demonstrated ability to drive behavioral and process change within delivery teams, including gaining buy-in from teams not directly under their authority 

• Project and programme discipline: solid grounding in structured delivery, with experience or certification in recognised approaches (for example PRINCE2, MSP, PMI or Agile equivalents), applied proportionately. 

• Dependencies and risk: managing dependencies, sequencing, risk and change across concurrent workstreams and teams. 

• Financial and commercial awareness: managing delivery budgets, forecast and trade-offs, and holding suppliers to plan and quality. 

• Stakeholder management: excellent communication and influencing, able to distil complexity into clarity for senior stakeholders and to work across business, technology and delivery teams. 

• Working within a programme: comfortable operating within programme governance and delivery standards set by others, and contributing to their improvement. 

• Domain awareness: a good understanding of modern software delivery and, ideally, of assurance, certification or related digital platforms (advantageous). 

Leadership profile 

• A hands-on delivery leader who consistently delivers to plan. 

• Enables and motivates squads, leading through influence rather than authority. 

• Balances pace with discipline, and agility with programme-level control. 

• Diligent, curious and constructively challenging, focused on outcomes over process. 

• A clear communicator across business, technology and delivery audiences. 

• Works well within the programme’s direction and standards, and helps improve them.