Programme Manager

Based in Reading, this full-time Programme Manager position with Pertemps Thames Water offers a competitive salary between £90,000 and £95,000 per annum. You will lead significant digital and business change initiatives within the company’s Technology function, steering complex programmes from inception to completion. Collaborating with senior stakeholders, engineering squads, and external partners, you will define scope, manage budgets, and establish robust governance frameworks.

Your leadership ensures strategic outcomes align with Thames Water’s transformation goals, delivering tangible benefits for customers and the environment. This role demands proven expertise in orchestrating multidisciplinary delivery within intricate organisational settings. As a Digital Programme Manager, you will play a key role within Thames Water’s Digital and Technology function, leading the delivery of significant digital and business change programmes across a complex organisational and technology environment.

Working closely with senior business stakeholders, Digital leadership, engineering teams, product teams, suppliers, and delivery partners, you will ensure programmes are effectively planned, governed, and delivered to achieve strategic business outcomes. This role contributes to Thames Water’s digital transformation objectives by defining programme scope, benefits, budgets, delivery plans, and governance structures that enable impactful change for customers, communities, and the environment.

You will provide strong leadership across multidisciplinary teams, manage complex dependencies and risks, and ensure programmes are delivered to agreed standards of time, quality, cost, and business value.

• Define and baseline programme scope, delivery plans, budgets, milestones, resources, dependencies, and business outcomes.
• Work closely with senior stakeholders, including Executive Director level, to establish clear programme objectives, benefits, priorities, and delivery expectations.
• Establish and manage effective programme governance structures covering cost, schedule, resources, RAID, dependencies, risks, issues, and decision‑making.
• Lead programme delivery teams and coordinate internal and external resources to ensure successful delivery of programme objectives.
• Identify, assess, manage, and mitigate programme risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies, escalating matters appropriately to senior leadership.
• Manage programme budgets of up to £10m per annum, ensuring effective financial control, forecasting, reporting, cost management, and delivery within agreed tolerances.
• Manage programme change across scope, time, cost, resources, and quality, ensuring appropriate governance and escalation where required.
• Coordinate technology solution assessments where required, ensuring proposed solutions align with business outcomes, technology strategy, architecture, security, and operational requirements.
• Oversee and support commercial and procurement activities, including RFI and RFQ processes, supplier selection, contract negotiations, and commercial governance.
• Manage supplier relationships across the full delivery lifecycle, ensuring suppliers deliver against agreed expectations for time, cost, quality, and performance.
• Identify and forecast programme resource requirements, including internal Digital resources and external delivery partners.
• Provide clear and timely programme reporting to senior leadership, including progress, financial performance, risks, issues, dependencies, benefits, and key decisions.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with business and technology stakeholders, ensuring effective communication, engagement, and alignment throughout programme delivery.

• Experience delivering complex Cyber Security programmes or major projects within a large enterprise environment.
• Strong understanding of cyber risk management and the ability to translate technical cyber risks into business impacts, priorities and decisions.
• Experience working with Cyber Security teams across areas such as Identity & Access Management, Infrastructure Security, Security Operations,…