Senior Project Manager
WORLD CHANGERS TOGETHER
Are you an experienced and creative Senior Project Manager?
Looking for an exciting opportunity? Join our Project Delivery team within the Information Services Directorate and make a significant impact on one of the world's top 100 universities.
As a key member of our team, you will leverage your strong project management skills to support a diverse portfolio of technology change projects. Collaborating with colleagues across the university, you will play a crucial role in developing innovative systems and services that enhance the experience for both our staff and students.
Job purpose
This Senior Project Manager role will report to the Head of Project Delivery, within the Programme Delivery directorate, working in partnership across Information Services. You will provide strong Project Management and Business Analysis skills to manage and drive the work of the team who are developing the systems and services to enhance the staff and student experience.
Main duties & responsibilities
1. Responsible for leading the delivery of projects: within agreed timescales, budgets, and scope: driving project initiation; management of the project and its resources to produce successful services that meet business needs.
2. Responsible for concurrently managing several large size organisational, process, systems and data projects across all Colleges/University Services and central functions.
3. Management of project staff resources for large project teams often including external parties, providing support, leadership and direction: developing plans for the delivery of required work and allocating the work according to resource type required, availability and skills; monitoring progress of work against plan, evaluating alternatives and initiating corrective action when required.
4. Communication with all relevant sponsor and stakeholder communities, including consultation and management of expectations; engaging and managing stakeholders from across the University, including academics, senior colleagues to operational staff to ensure clarity in the delivery of key project communications.
5. Deployment of a robust and responsive risk management approach to identify, assess, monitor, and actively manage risks.
6. Ensure that there are appropriate quality management processes in place to ensure that the final deliverables of projects comply with stakeholder requirements, appropriate legislation, University policies and procedures, and industry best practice.
7. Report to the relevant Project Boards and senior university forums and committees on all aspects of the management and delivery of projects, preparing high-quality papers and required project management products.
8. Provide leadership in business process mapping and improvement as part of delivering the wider project change.
Knowledge and qualifications
Essential
- Extensive knowledge of change projects including organisation and process design, systems implementation, and data projects.
- Relevant Degree/postgraduate qualification, or equivalent in disciplines such as IT or management.
- Project Management qualification and thorough understanding of project management methodologies.
- Extensive knowledge of Agile project management methodologies
- Extensive knowledge of and exposure to the IT system development lifecycle.
- Knowledge and experience of business process mapping & design
Desirable
- SCRUM certification or PRINCE2 Practitioner certificate.
- Knowledge of the competitive dialogue procurement process.
- ITIL Foundation.
Skills
Essential
- Management of complex projects across the full lifecycle with a successful track record of delivery.
- Ability to write detailed project plans and ensure these are agreed and communicated with the project team, project board and stakeholders.
- Demonstrably excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, bridging the gap between technical and non-technical.
- Leading change management in a large and diverse organisation.
- Ability to challenge the status quo effectively and develop innovative approaches.
- Relationship management, engaging and positively managing relationships with those delivering and affected by change.
- Proven ability to liaise and cooperate with people across organisational boundaries.
- Creating and maintaining schedules of work as an active tool for staff delivering work packages.
- Leadership and motivational skills in formal and informal situations.
- Effective negotiation and diplomacy skills.
- Effective writing and communication skills to produce clear project management documents and sponsor and stakeholder focused content.
Experience
Essential
- Relevant experience of successfully managing projects that involve complex planning in a large organisation.
- Experienced in using Agile tools, or similar project planning software.
- Substantial expertise in leading business analysis.
- Experience of managing an organisation-wide data centric programme of work.
- Experience of running project teams of 20+ people, including external contractors.
World-Changing Campus
We have delivered one of the most significant expansions of a UK university city campus for over a century.
Over the last decade, the University of Glasgow has invested in its estate to expand its world-class campus and facilities.
An area covering 14 acres of land next to our magnificent Gilmorehill campus has been redeveloped to build a mix of modern research, teaching and public spaces.
Our new buildings will mean the University remains a centre for world-changing research, as well as a vibrant community hub and centre for public engagement.
The development will transform our teaching, learning and research spaces. It will allow us to bring together the best minds of today and tomorrow within world-class interdisciplinary research spaces that offer flexibility and stimulate collaboration, and modern study spaces that will combine study and social learning space with technology enabled teaching.
- The Mazumdar-Shaw Advanced Research Centre (ARC) is changing the way research is conducted at Glasgow. The ARC is the creative and collaborative heart of research at the University of Glasgow, bridging the boundaries between research, cross-subject collaboration and true societal impact . The ARC brings more than 500 world-leading researchers from a range of disciplines together in a building specifically designed to break down organisational structure and facilitate collaboration and interdisciplinary work.
- The James McCune Smith Learning Hub is an inspirational and diverse learning space. The flagship building was the first to be completed as part of our campus development, and provides a creative environment, combining flexible study and social learning space with multi-styled and technology-enabled teaching. It can accommodate more than 2,500 students, and includes a lecture theatre with capacity for 500 students. State-of-the-art teaching facilities, with flexible study spaces and interactive teaching for students, help to create a more immersive learning experience.
Find out more
Living in Glasgow
A UNESCO City of Music, a vibrant arts and culture scene, a food-lover’s delight, and a shopper’s paradise. Just some of the highlights of the ‘friendliest city in the world’. As well as that accolade by the Rough Guides poll, Glasgow has also been named a must visit destination by publications including the New York Times, The Guardian, and Wanderlust.
Music
The city hosts an average of 130 music events a week catering for every taste; from rock to rap, and classical to country. Glasgow also has a world class club scene playing host to some of the world’s top DJs.
Shopping
Outside of London’s West End, Glasgow is frequently voted the best place for shopping in the UK. A must-visit destination for any shop-a-holic, it houses high street chains, international designers, and independent retailers. The West End, home to the University of Glasgow, is bustling with vintage fashion, vinyl stores, and second-hand bookshops.
Arts and Culture
Glasgow’s arts scene has gone from strength to strength, and is the base for five internationally renowned performing arts companies including the National Theatre of Scotland and Scottish Ballet. The city has several world-class museums, which are free to the public, and the city’s architecture is a work of art in itself.
Food and drink
You can be in Glasgow and taste the world with its many diverse restaurants, cafes, and bars. And if you’ve yet to sample the delights of haggis and whisky, Glasgow is the place to be.
The City and Beyond
Glasgow has all the opportunities and excitement of a big city but its compact size means you can quickly travel from one vibrant district to the next. You could be relaxing in one of its many parks, before shopping in the quirky West End, and then dancing until the wee small hours in the Merchant City.
And when you fancy getting out of the city you can reach the stunning Loch Lomond in just 30 minutes, climb one of our many breath-taking Munros, play golf at one of Scotland’s many world-class courses, visit one of our ancient castles, or go further North and search for Nessie! Scotland has also just been named the world’s most beautiful country by Rough Guides.
Relocating to Glasgow
Choosing to relocate to Glasgow is a big decision. There are numerous things to be considered, such as the costs of moving, the cost of living, and where exactly to relocate to. We have created two guides to aide you in the decision making process.
Find out more on relocating to Glasgow at the below link:
- Relocating to Glasgow
WORLD CHANGERS TOGETHER
WORLD CHANGING GLASGOW 2025
Our outstanding disciplinary breadth and expertise has enabled us to make world-changing advances in fields as diverse as medicine, physics, linguistics, public policy and global development.
The key to our success is our talented staff and students pushing back at the boundaries of knowledge and understanding together.
Our World Changers Together strategy recognises the fundamental importance of a culture of open cooperation: not just as colleagues and mentors or students and teachers, but as a community of discovery that reaches beyond its walls and draws inspiration and strength from its connections and partnerships worldwide: excellence that's part of something bigger. The strategy is articulated across three themes:
COMMUNITY
- People centred, globally engaged
CONNECTIVITY
- Collaboratively minded, digitally enhanced
CHALLENGES
- Solution focused, impact oriented
Find out more
How to apply
Full details of the role and how to apply can be found by visiting our website:
The closing date for applications is 16 February 2025
Terms & Conditions
Salary will be Grade 8, £49,250 - £56,921 per annum.
This role is full time (35 hours p/w) and open ended. Relocation assistance will be provided where appropriate.
The University of Glasgow has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK. If you require a Skilled Worker visa to work in the UK, you will be required to meet the eligibility requirements of the visa route to be assigned a Certificate of Sponsorship.
Please note that this post may be eligible to be sponsored under the Skilled Worker visa route if tradeable points can be used under the Skilled Worker visa rules. For more information please visit: https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa.
It is the University of Glasgow’s mission to foster an inclusive climate, which ensures equality in our working, learning, research and teaching environment. We strongly endorse the principles of Athena SWAN, including a supportive and flexible working environment, with commitment from all levels of the organisation in promoting gender equity.
Our values
The future holds innumerable challenges for our sector, our society, and our world. We will have to adapt and change what we do and what we offer if we are to navigate these successfully. Our strategy and approach may evolve as the landscape changes, but our values will remain constant: a fixed point of certainty in uncertain times.
We have identified our values in consultation and partnership with our staff and student community. Living and upholding these values will ensure that we remain true to the spirit of our community and ourselves:
Ambition and Excellence
- We strive for excellence through our work
- We defend academic freedom globally
- We recognise and celebrate shared success
- We have an unrelenting focus on development
Curiosity and Discovery
- We innovate and solve problems together
- We lead by influence and example
- We engage with lifelong learning and personal development
- We learn from our mistakes
Integrity and Truth
- We uphold honesty, integrity and fairness
- We share our work widely and generously
- We do the right thing, not the easy thing - or we don’t do it
- We take responsibility
An Inclusive Community
- We are one Glasgow team, and we care for and respect one another
- We advocate for diversity and believe in variety as a vital part of a healthy university
- We champion education as an engine for social progress
- We practise and advance sustainability