PMO Manager

PMO
Contract until 31st March 2027
Hybrid – 3/4 days onsite (Office location – Stratford, London)

Purpose of the role
To provide PMO support and light touch Project Management for the Claims Management Practices Review (CMPR), coordinating activity across multiple workstreams and providing governance, planning and reporting support to ensure the project is delivered effectively, maintaining controls, managing risks and dependencies and enabling informed decision-making across stakeholders.

Background
CMPR is focused on addressing poor practices within the claims management market and delivering improved outcomes for consumers. This role will support the Change Lead, Senior Programme Manager, Project Manager(s), workstream and Taskforce leads by providing comprehensive PMO support across a multi-workstream project. The postholder will be responsible for coordinating governance, planning, reporting, risk and issue management, financial oversight and stakeholder engagement, ensuring effective delivery within a fast-paced and diverse stakeholder environment.

PMO responsibilities include:
Define, maintain and report progress against an integrated delivery plan, including key milestones, decision points and stage gates.
Drive day-to-day delivery discipline across multiple workstreams and stakeholders, tracking milestones, dependencies, blockers and clear routes to escalation where risks or slippage require senior intervention.
Maintain core programme controls, including financial forecasts, action, risk, issue, dependency and decision logs with clear ownership and follow-up.
Coordinate and minute governance meetings and forward agendas, including support for CMPR Project Board, Head of Department HoD check-ins, working-level meetings and Taskforce-related governance where required.
Manage programme budgets and resource forecasts, track actual spend against planned expenditure, conduct variance analysis to identify financial risks and opportunities, own monthly accruals and produce accurate financial reports to support governance, decision-making and cost control.
Prepare reporting packs and meeting materials, including progress tracking, RAG reporting, board papers and evidence of delivery against milestones.
Maintain document discipline, version control and configuration management and provide information required for effective oversight, assurance and efficient execution.
Essential
Proven experience as the sole PMO on complex, multi-workstream projects, delivering the full suite of PMO services including governance, planning, reporting, risk and dependency management, stakeholder engagement, resource tracking and financial management.
Proven ability to maintain integrated delivery plans, milestones, decision points, dependencies and routes to escalation across multiple workstreams.
Strong experience of programme governance, including preparing papers, packs, agendas, minutes/actions, RAG reporting.
Excellent RAID, dependency, decision and action management capability with strong attention to detail and document/version control discipline.
Ability to build strong relationships and work collaboratively with stakeholders at all levels of seniority, communicating risks, issues and key updates clearly, proactively and in a timely manner to support effective decision-making.
Analytical capability to use project data and delivery insight to identify trends, risks, slippage and corrective actions.
Experienced user of MS Office Suite and project/reporting tools such as MS Project, Clarity/Clarizen or equivalent systems.
Proven ability to manage budgets, resource plans, forecasting, financial reporting and variance analysis.
Evidence of project or programme management certification, e.g. Prince2, PMP, Agile, MSP, P3O or APMP.
Desirable
Experience of working on regulatory change projects/programmes 
Knowledge of claims management, consumer finance, market studies or regulatory reviews. 
Experience supporting public consultations, policy development or consumer-focused initiatives. 
Ability to coach colleagues in project frameworks and behaviours that support a high-quality delivery service.
Ability to quickly understand a new environment, get up to speed and make value-adding contributions