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Head of Major Programmes Portfolio

Job details
Posting date: 16 July 2025
Salary: £67,170 to £78,192 per year
Additional salary information: National: £67,170 - £76,117 London: £70,845 - £78,192
Hours: Full time
Closing date: 29 July 2025
Location: Darlington
Company: Government Recruitment Service
Job type: Permanent
Job reference: 416661/4

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Summary

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) is the department for economic growth. We support businesses to invest, grow and export, creating jobs and opportunities across the country. DBT has four key priority outcomes:
  • Make the UK the best place in the world to do business.
  • Make the UK the best-connected economy, and the best place to do business from.
  • Deliver great services for business. The Project Delivery & Change (PD&C) Directorate is part of the Corporate Services Group, supporting all areas of the department to deliver our Economic Growth mission. We deliver high-quality projects and programmes that support economic growth, enhancing DBT’s project delivery and change capabilities, ensuring effective collaboration and fostering continuous improvement.

Our key objectives are:

  • Manage the Department's Change Portfolio by providing analysis, assurance and insight & oversight to drive effective investment decisions and decision-making.
  • Deliver and enable high quality programmes by using insight and expertise to directly deliver programmes (FESSP) and advise and support the delivery of priority programmes, such as Future DBT.
  • Raise Capability by building project delivery and change capability across DBT, championing best practice and ensuring all programmes adhere to functional standards.

An opportunity has arisen to lead the Change Portfolio Office (CPO) for DBT that looks after strategic delivery oversight of DBT’s major programmes/projects and project delivery best practice, across four key pillars:

  • Leading portfolio management of DBT’s major programmes/projects portfolio for the Performance and Risk Committee (PRC) and the Investment Committee (IC) (both sub-committees to DBT’s Executive Committee).
  • Driving up PD standards across DBT projects by proactively guiding and supporting projects through their delivery life-cycle.
  • Developing and implementing PD frameworks, guidance and tools to raise maturity of projects, while raising capability of PD professionals.
  • Practitioner expertise in project delivery planning and capability to departmental projects.

The Role:

You will be leading a PMO team with direct line management of two Grade 7s. Leading your team you will be responsible for:

  • Managing DBT’s major projects portfolio, including reporting to PRC and IC, ensuring alignment with departmental strategic objectives.
  • Leading on the development of increased portfolio analytical maturity, while looking for digital options where possible to support and enhance this offer.
  • Building and maintaining relationships with Major Programmes Portfolio sub-portfolios, projects, corporate functions and across PD&C to understand impact on portfolio delivery, while providing lead oversight of planning, dependencies and risks.
  • Developing and maintaining the DBT project delivery planning standards and supporting project planners across the organisation.
  • Initiating and supporting new projects/sub-portfolios to the IC Portfolio through on - boarding to ensure alignment to portfolio standards.
  • Leading PD maturity assessments/health-checks of IC projects in line with assurance requirements.
  • Utilising a team of specialist PD subject matter experts to provide outward project delivery advisory to SROs/projects at various stages of delivery life-cycle with a focus on driving up standards.
  • Supporting projects to ensure they have the right structures, governance and supporting mobilisation of their PMOs.
  • Being at the forefront of project delivery industry and government standards through regular interaction and relationship building with NISTA and OGD PD functions, while looking at these standards and market trends for consideration.
  • Developing, implementing and leading continuous improvement of best practice PD frameworks and methodologies
  • Supporting targeted L&D training sessions to projects, business areas and the community on PD best practice and tools.

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