Senior Project Manager

Job title Senior Project Manager  Division Digital Location Reading - Clearwater Court - RG1 8DB
Contract type Permanent Full/Part-time Full-time Salary Competitive salary up to £80,000 per annum, depending on experience. Job grade C Closing date 05/11/2026

As a Senior Project Manager
, you will play a key role within the Digital and Transformation teams at Thames Water, leading complex IT projects and technology-enabled business change initiatives that support the organisation’s strategic objectives.

Working closely with business stakeholders, technical specialists, and programme leadership, you will define project scope, objectives, plans, budgets, and resource requirements, ensuring delivery meets agreed standards for time, quality, and cost. You will lead cross-functional teams comprising Project Management, Business Analysis, Test Management, Service Introduction, and Solution Architecture capabilities to deliver successful business outcomes.

This role contributes to Thames Water’s digital transformation by driving effective project governance, managing risks and dependencies, maintaining financial control, and ensuring projects comply with the organisation’s delivery framework and assurance standards.

• Lead cross-functional project teams to deliver agreed objectives, milestones, and deliverables across IT and technology-enabled business change projects.
• Define and baseline project scope, objectives, delivery plans, budgets, and resource requirements.
• Identify, engage, and manage stakeholders, ensuring effective communication, alignment, and decision-making throughout the project lifecycle.
• Establish and lead project review meetings covering cost, schedule, resources, RAID, and RAG status.
• Produce and review project status reports, providing clear updates on progress, risks, issues, dependencies, and delivery performance.
• Manage project resources, including forecasting, allocation, prioritisation, mentoring, and team development.
• Attend project appraisal workshops, reviews, and kick-off meetings, and participate in the Thames Digital Gate 0 process to assess and manage demand.
• Maintain project cost models covering actual expenditure, accruals, forecasts, and budget performance, ensuring costs remain within approved tolerances.
• Manage project risks, issues, and dependencies across projects, programmes, and portfolios, resolving matters within agreed tolerances and escalating where necessary.
• Manage project changes relating to scope, schedule, and budget, ensuring changes outside agreed tolerances are appropriately escalated and approved.
• Implement and maintain project governance, controls, and reporting standards in line with Thames Water’s delivery framework.
• Ensure project deliverables are completed, reviewed, and signed off appropriately, and participate in PMO assurance activities.
• Review project closure reports and participate in lessons learned workshops to support continuous improvement.

• Experience managing IT projects and technology-enabled business change initiatives in complex delivery environments.
• Proven ability to define project objectives, develop delivery plans, and motivate multidisciplinary teams to achieve agreed outcomes.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, balancing diplomacy and tact with assertiveness when managing competing priorities.
• Experience managing project budgets, resources, risks, issues, dependencies, and change control.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to produce clear, compelling, and unambiguous project documentation.
• Strong planning, organisational, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to manage competing demands and resolve delivery…