Senior Project Manager

Location: Bradford / Petersfield / Chatham

Closing Date: Friday 22 March 2024

Senior Project Manager

Location: Bradford, Chatham, or Petersfield

We are happy for you to be based in Bradford, Chatham or Petersfield but please note that occasional travel will be required to our other offices.

Working Pattern: Our working style is hybrid, but we recognise the importance of collaborative working with our colleagues often 1 to 3 days per week in one of our offices.

Benefits: Discretionary annual bonus, 25 days holiday up to 30 days (depending on service), pension scheme with matched company contributions up to 10%, 1 paid day to ‘give back’.

Don’t hesitate to apply for a role even if you don’t meet all the criteria; your unique strengths and eagerness to learn can be just as valuable.

You and Your Team:

As a Senior Project Manager, you will be reporting to the BA & Change Community Manager. The Senior Project Manager manages multiple large business projects/programmes within the Group portfolio. Responsibilities include the coordination and completion of projects on time, to scope and within budget.

The Senior Project Manager will oversee all aspects of large-scale project delivery, being a catalyst for change, leading the project team, setting deadlines, assigning responsibilities, monitoring, and reporting project progress.

In your day-to-day role, as a Senior Project Manager you will:

• Successful delivery of projects to time, budget, scope that can realise expected benefits.
• Working with Sponsor, Accountable Executive, and key stakeholders, support the development of the project business case, taking business and functional requirements into account when considering possible options.
• Compliance with business policies and processes whilst meeting change standards and defined governance requirements.
• Ensure that the project is adequately planned and well structured, resolving issues and initiating corrective action where necessary.
• Lead, engage and motivate the project team and any direct or indirect reports to deliver project objectives and outcomes.
• Provide analysis and forecasting to help support overall delivery of the change portfolio.
• Prepare and maintain relevant plans, including project, critical path, communication, and deployment plans.
• Ensure that all risks and issues associated to the project are properly documented, reported, and actively managed; proposing appropriate actions and accompanied by effective communication throughout the process.
• Ensure project reports and documents are prepared and delivered on time and to high quality.
• Ensure that the impact of any change being proposed is considered and an appropriate change management approach is developed that will produce the best outcome for the business.
• Manage inter-dependencies with other projects and their impact.
• Develop and maintain effective communication channels with stakeholders as well as the wider business to ensure engagement, support and delivery of the projects’ desired outcomes and benefits.
• Be a champion for the success of projects, leading and motivating others and making Vanquis Banking Group a great place to work.
• Drive continual improvement both individually and as an organisation, including identifying and acting on opportunities for improved efficiency and productivity.

What will make you stand out?

• Significant experience as a Project Manager, ideally within a regulated industry
• An excellent understanding of the project management lifecycle and the role of a Senior Project/Programme Manager within this.
• Extensive experience of working within complex change environments, managing multiple large business projects/programmes simultaneously.
• Effective co-ordination of projects/ programmes including project financials, and management of inter-dependencies including oversight of any risks and issues arising.
• Strong knowledge and experience of Waterfall and/or Agile methodologies.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capability.
• Advanced written and communication skills to support report writing and presentations of complex subject matter to senior stakeholders.
• Achieved or studying towards a Project Management qualification (Agile Foundation and Practitioner, Prince 2 Foundation and Practitioner Qualified) or equivalent experience.
• Highly proficient in standard Microsoft Office applications as well as proficient in project planning and applicable software i.e. MS Project or similar.

The interview process:

• Up to 30minute telephone call with a member of the Talent Acquisition team.
• Up to 1 hour competency-based interview with the hiring team.
• Final interview with head of business change delivery + 1 programme Manager for 1 hour to complete scenario-based interview.

Our average process takes up to 4 weeks but we will always work around your availability. You will have the chance to speak to our recruitment team throughout the process.

As this role involves working within a regulated environment any offer will be subject to satisfactory background checks including criminal record check, credit check, fraud check and employment references.

Your working life: If you prefer to work part-time, we'll make this happen whenever we can - whether this is to help you meet other commitments or strike a great work-life balance. A fear of losing your current working flexibility shouldn't hinder you from applying for new opportunities, which is why we aim to match your existing flexible working arrangements where possible.

Why work for us?

Back in 1880, our founder, JK Waddilove started to provide factory workers in Bradford, with essentials, when others wouldn’t, like coal and clothing.

Times have changed since then, society has moved on, and our market and customer needs have evolved. What has not changed though, is our long-established desire to help put people on a path to a better everyday life.
Today we have stayed true to our purpose, just as we’ve always done, in our communities, for our customers, in an evolving and changing world.
It’s why we are here, it’s how we will stay, and as Vanquis Banking Group, we can look to the future, and look back at our past with pride.

At Vanquis Banking Group we believe in looking after our colleagues, so we do our best to create a rewarding, engaging, and supportive work environment across our various divisions.

We let our colleagues know we appreciate their hard work by offering competitive salaries, benefits, and a Group wide recognition scheme. All colleagues are eligible to join a pension scheme, and, after six months’ service, you can join our ‘Save as you Earn’ and 'Buy as you Earn' schemes.

We offer a range of training and development opportunities to help each of our colleagues maximise their potential, whatever their role. From your first day working with us, we’ll help you settle into your new role and are happy to talk to you about your career aspirations.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Here at Vanquis Banking Group, we embrace everyone’s unique strengths and identities to be themselves at work. Regardless of how you identify yourself, your sexual orientation, martial or civil partner status, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national background, faith, disability, or age – your experiences and background help enrich our teams, and most importantly help support our customers in the best way possible. At the end of the day, its our people that help us to fulfil the reason why we’re here in the first place: to help put people on a path to a better everyday life.

If there’s anything we can do in the recruitment process to help you achieve your best, get in touch. Whether it’s a copy of our application form in another format or additional assistance, we’re available to help. You can contact us at Talent.Acqusition@vanquisbankinggroup.com