Innovation Project Manager

Base Location
:
Glasgow, Perth, Portsmouth or Reading. You’ll be expected to spend 50% of your working week in one of these locations.

Salary
: £64,085 - £76,581 + a range of benefits to support your finances, wellbeing and family.

Working Pattern
:
Permanent | Full Time | Flexible First options available

We are looking for an experienced Project Manager to lead complex innovation projects from early development through to operational adoption and benefits realisation. This role sits at the heart of innovation delivery, combining pace, collaboration and creative problem‑solving with strong project controls, commercial awareness and professional rigour.

You’ll work across a diverse portfolio of forward‑looking initiatives, coordinating multidisciplinary teams and external partners to turn innovation funding into practical, scalable and lasting value for our customers, network and business. Working across technical, digital, operational and strategic change, you will help promising ideas progress through delivery, deployment and ultimately into Business‑as‑Usual operations.

• Lead complex innovation projects from concept through to closure, establishing clear delivery plans, governance, budgets, resources and priorities while managing multiple initiatives across different technical and operational areas.
• Coordinate multidisciplinary teams and delivery partners, bringing together engineering, business analysis, operational, commercial and specialist expertise to maintain alignment, manage dependencies and deliver agreed outcomes.
• Manage project performance and innovation funding effectively, maintaining robust forecasts, controls, risk management, regulatory evidence and reporting while identifying opportunities to maximise the value achieved from investment.
• Drive projects towards adoption and measurable benefits, working with operational owners to establish deployment pathways, readiness arrangements, support models and effective transition into standard business governance.
• Shape the future innovation pipeline and strengthen delivery practice, developing high‑value opportunities and funding proposals, applying lessons learned and improving project management standards across the innovation portfolio.

• A strong track record of delivering complex projects end-to-end, ideally across innovation, technology, engineering, operational change or another regulated environment, including the successful management of multiple concurrent projects.
• Recognised project management expertise, supported by a relevant qualification such as APM PMQ, PRINCE2 Practitioner or equivalent professional experience applying structured governance and stage‑gate approaches.
• Strong financial, commercial and delivery management capability, with experience of managing substantial budgets, forecasts, contracts, suppliers, risks, issues, dependencies and changes.
• Excellent stakeholder leadership and communication skills, with the confidence to influence senior stakeholders, facilitate effective decision‑making and build trusted relationships across technical, operational and external partner organisations.
• A pragmatic, adaptable and improvement‑focused mindset, able to exercise sound judgement, maintain momentum in uncertain environments and balance innovation ambition with safe, compliant and scalable delivery.

SSE’s purpose is to be restless every day until we make electricity clean, affordable and available for all.

We do this by developing, building, operating and investing in electricity infrastructure and businesses needed in the energy transition. This includes electricity transmission and distribution networks, onshore and offshore wind farms, hydro-electric power and flexible thermal generation.…