Development Project Manager

Lightbodies of Hamilton Ltd, 73 Bothwell Road, Hamilton, United Kingdom, United Kingdom

73 Bothwell Rd, Hamilton ML3 0DW
, UK

Location: Lightbody’s of Hamilton, Hamilton(on site)

Shift: Monday – Friday

We have an exciting opportunity for a Development Project Manager to join our team and play a key role in managing the delivery of all our development projects across our Hamilton site.

Finsbury Food Group is one of the UK’s leading speciality bakery manufacturers. We continually raise quality, innovation, and operational standards while building long-term, trusted relationships across retail, food service, and brand partnerships. Our portfolio spans a wide range of bakery categories—from market-leading retailer own-brand products to beloved licensed and branded ranges—produced across our nationwide network of bakeries.

As a Development Launch Manager, you'll be at the heart of our innovation pipeline, working across Development, Operations, Technical, Supply Chain, Commercial and Senior Management teams to ensure EPD and NPD projects are delivered successfully. You'll manage multiple projects at different stages, maintaining clear critical paths and driving the timely completion of key milestones, actions, approvals and sign-offs.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys bringing people together, creating structure and maintaining momentum across complex projects. You'll proactively identify risks, challenge where required, and work with stakeholders across the business to ensure projects remain on track, governance requirements are met, and launches are delivered successfully.

As a Development Launch Manager, you'll take ownership of the project management and governance of EPD and NPD projects, ensuring each project has a clear and achievable critical path from development through to launch. You'll manage multiple projects simultaneously, driving progress against key milestones, actions, dependencies, approvals and sign-offs.

Working closely with Development, Operations, Technical, Supply Chain, Procurement, Commercial and Senior Management teams, you'll ensure projects remain aligned to agreed timelines and governance requirements. You'll coordinate project activity, maintain visibility of progress, and proactively identify and resolve risks, issues and barriers to delivery.

A key part of the role will be owning the product management system (P74), ensuring projects progress through all stage gates with the appropriate approvals, documentation and stakeholder alignment. You'll be confident challenging where necessary, driving accountability and managing expectations, while escalating issues appropriately to support timely decision-making.

You'll also be responsible for maintaining accurate project information, critical paths and governance records, leading project reviews and providing clear updates to stakeholders. Through effective coordination and communication, you'll help ensure actions are completed and projects remain on track.

With a high volume of projects running at any one time, strong organisation and prioritisation skills are essential. You'll be comfortable balancing competing priorities while maintaining oversight of the innovation pipeline and ensuring products are launched on time, to the required quality standards and in line with business objectives.

• Strong project management, critical path planning and organisational skills, with the ability to manage multiple projects and competing priorities.
• Experience coordinating cross-functional teams and driving accountability across multiple stakeholders.
• Strong influencing and stakeholder management skills, with the confidence to challenge…