Programme and Business Manager

About the Role

Reliable energy systems are fundamental to everyday life in Great Britain. They underpin homes, businesses, public services, and critical national infrastructure, and are essential to economic stability, public safety, and social wellbeing. As the energy system evolves through decarbonisation, increasing electrification, and greater interdependence across sectors, ensuring that it remains secure, reliable, and resilient is more important than ever. The Whole Energy System Resilience (WESR) directorate strengthens whole-energy-system resilience by being a catalyst for change – turning insight into coordinated, prioritised action that reduces risk and builds capability across the system.

WESR delivers this through analysis, assessments, reviews, emergency exercises, and plans that drive tangible improvements with our partners.

WESR operates through a continuous improvement cycle that includes:

• Learning systematically about energy system risks and resilience
• Conducting prioritised assessments to generate insights and advice
• Translating insights into actions that drive tangible improvements

WESR is building its capability to maintain a strategic, system-wide view that integrates insights across all teams in the directorate and translates them into prioritised risks, workplans, and engagement strategies. This enables each team to focus on developing deep expertise and excellence in a specialist area. This role can be based from Wokingham or Warwick, and we continue to offer hybrid working from office and home.

We are open to full time and part time applicants, as well as flexible working arrangements. This role is to lead the team that builds and manages WESR’s central activity plan and its business health, ensuring that every workstream, resource, and timeline aligns with WESR leadership’s strategic steer to drive prioritised actions that strengthen the resilience of Great Britain’s energy system.

The team owns the integrated view of what WESR delivers—spotting interdependencies, risks, and opportunities for shared capability—and continuously works with teams across WESR to adjust the plan as new priorities emerge.

• Develop and coordinate the delivery of WESR’s central activity plan—annual, quarterly, and ad-hoc—linking system priorities, leadership steer, and available resources. This includes all activities WESR does to learn about energy system risks and resilience, generate insights and advice, and drive tangible improvements
• Proactively manage the activity triage and prioritisation process in WESR
• Identify and manage cross-team interdependencies, overlaps, and delivery risks, providing clear recommendations to leadership to drive WESR’s portfolio
• Lead the creation of clear portfolio insights and dashboards for leadership and NESO governance groups
• Coordinate dynamic resource allocation and knowledge-sharing across WESR, ensuring teams have what they need to deliver efficiently
• Monitor progress, risks, and performance against the plan; intervene or re-prioritise as needed
• Lead WESR’s business management processes, including monitoring performance KPIs, reporting, governance, financials, as well as proactively identifying mitigations to business risks and opportunities and driving those with support from senior leadership
• Coordinate input into NESO strategic planning activities, including development of business planning processes
• Manage and develop a multidisciplinary team focused on proactive delivery and coordination

Applicants must have the right to work in the UK by the start of employment. Visa sponsorship may not be available for this role and will be considered in line with business requirements.

Experienced portfolio or business-planning leader who thrives on structure and clarity. Skilled at turning multiple inputs into a single, coherent, forward-looking plan. Comfortable making prioritisation decisions and challenging constructively to align resources with impact. Analytical and system-minded—able to spot connections, conflicts, and delivery risks early. Strong communicator and collaborator who builds trust across teams and leadership levels. Proactive…