Portfolio Delivery Manager – Transport

Job Benefits:
benefits IT Portfolio Delivery Manager - Permanent

London | Up to £120,000 | 4 days per week onsite

A great opportunity for an experienced IT Delivery leader who wants to do more than simply run an established portfolio.

We're partnering with a major UK organisation making significant investment across IT and Transformation. They're building out a new leadership and delivery capability and are looking for an IT Portfolio Delivery Manager to lead the Core IT portfolio and help raise the maturity of how technology change is delivered across the business.

You'll lead a team of Project Managers and Business Analysts, sitting between the Head of IT Delivery and the delivery teams. The portfolio supports multiple operating companies and covers everything from operational technology and site mobilisations through to infrastructure, platforms and new digital capabilities.

The capability is there – what they need now is someone who can bring greater structure, consistency and leadership around it.

This isn’t a Portfolio Manager role that is purely focused on governance and reporting. You'll be accountable for delivery while also helping mature the wider capability.

You’ll have the opportunity to:

• Lead a broad portfolio of Core IT projects and programmes.
• Lead, coach and develop a team of experienced PMs and BAs.
• Improve how new demand is captured, shaped, prioritised and brought into delivery.
• Build a clearer forward pipeline of well-shaped initiatives.
• Strengthen portfolio planning, resource management and capacity planning.
• Improve delivery standards, governance, assurance and ways of working.
• Own portfolio-level risks, issues, dependencies and escalations.
• Build strong relationships across the wider business and understand what is coming down the line before it becomes an urgent requirement.
• Work closely with PMO, Architecture, Product, Service, Information Security and wider business teams.
• Raise the consistency and quality of delivery without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Help shape and embed a more mature delivery capability while continuing to get things delivered.

You’ll probably be operating as an IT Portfolio Manager, Portfolio Delivery Manager, Head of Delivery or senior Delivery Lead within a complex technology environment.

The sweet spot is someone who has:

• Led complex portfolios of technology change.
• Strong people leadership experience and a track record of developing delivery teams.
• Experience of demand management, portfolio planning and prioritisation.
• Strong governance, risk, dependency and delivery assurance capability.
• Managed resource and capacity across multiple concurrent projects.
• Excellent business stakeholder management and the confidence to challenge constructively.
• Worked across a broad technology portfolio, ideally including infrastructure, platforms, operational technology or enterprise systems.
• Seen mature delivery practices working well and can pragmatically introduce what is appropriate.
• Strong commercial awareness, including budgets, suppliers and third-party delivery.
• A hands-on approach and is comfortable operating in an environment where not everything is fully defined yet.

Experience from transport, travel, hospitality, retail, logistics or another operational/service‑led environment would be particularly interesting. We're also open to people coming from mature consultancy or technology service environments, provided you've owned delivery and business relationships rather than simply designed frameworks.

This is very much a build and improve opportunity. The wider transformation programme is significant, the investment is there and the leadership team is looking for someone who can come in, bring greater structure and genuinely raise the maturity of IT Delivery. You'll have the opportunity to lead an established team while shaping how demand, portfolio planning and delivery operate going forward.

It's a chance to have genuine influence over the function while still remaining close to delivery and seeing the impact of the changes you put in place.