Assistant Project Manager - Returners
| Posting date: | 05 January 2026 |
|---|---|
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 12 January 2026 |
| Location: | Birmingham, B4 6GA |
| Company: | National Highways |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 6986_1767604474 |
Summary
About the Job.
Are you looking to return to work following a career break of 2 or more years? If you are an experienced professional looking to return to the workplace, this could be the perfect opportunity for you. To apply for this vacancy and join our Returners Programme, applicants must be returning from a career break of 2 or more years or have been freelancing or working in a home business, in that time.
We currently have a vacancy for an Assistant Project Manager within the Operations Portfolio Office. This role assists in the management of the Investment Decision Committee (IDC) process across Operations, including involvement in the Operations Capital Renewals Programme and Operations Designated Funds.
Our team sits in the National Operations Portfolio, Performance and Governance Group (OPOPG) within the Operations Planning & Performance Division. Our group supports the wider Operations Directorate to manage and report on our business-as-usual activity, to explore and adopt new initiatives, and to develop and deliver a 5-year programme of work activity in excess of 2bn per annum, including the development and delivery of the Operations Roads Investment Strategy (RIS3) case.
You will be required to work closely with managers and internal / external stakeholders to discuss their projects and to understand their vision, timescales, and outcomes, communicating effectively across our Programme. To be successful in this role, you will have to be a committed team member working across many parts of Operations and wider within the business.
- Provide flexible business support to ensure projects, programmes, portfolio and work streams deliver impact and value for money. This includes delivery to time, quality, cost, and are compliant with our governance frameworks and statutory accounting requirements.
- Support the management of project budget, schedule and risk. You will identify and evaluate emerging risks, issues, opportunities. dependencies and constraints associated with programmes and divisions, escalating where appropriate and developing solutions to overcome or capture them.
- Working with National Highways regional teams to ensure a full understanding and alignment of project objectives, strategies and within a wider asset management context.
- Developing and maintaining strong collaborative relationships with key internal and external stakeholders, to ensure full mutual understanding of the projects' strategic and delivery objectives, to report on and review project(s) performance, and to agree solutions that resolve complex issues.
- Supporting development of the future case for funding for the Operations Directorate, through the Roads Investment Strategy (RIS) case.
- You will be expected to work at pace within emerging programmes of work.
About you.
- Demonstrable experience of supporting programmes of work through development and / or delivery
- Proven ability to build and maintain successful relationships with key stakeholders
- Good working knowledge of Microsoft Excel and experience of working with data and modelling to spot errors
- Analytical skills to develop, analyse and provide performance insights
- Excellent attention to detail
About us.
Here at National Highways, we manage and improve England's motorways and major A roads, helping our customers have safer, smoother and more reliable journeys. Our priorities are safety, customers and delivery, and at the core of this, are our values of passion, integrity, safety, teamwork and ownership.
Operations is at the heart of keeping the strategic road network moving and ensuring our customers get the best possible experience when using our roads.
We address over 39,000 customer enquiries every month, plan and deliver all maintenance activities on the network, drive efficiencies and improvements across our systems and roads, and respond to incidents across 4,500 miles of motorways and major A-roads that we manage. All to make sure National Highways customers have safer, smoother, and more reliable journeys.
External candidates will be offered a starting salary at the lower end of the pay scale, while current employees will be appointed in accordance with our established pay policy.
We are committed to creating a diverse environment and welcome applicants from all backgrounds.
Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme