Senior Project Manager

Job Description

About the role

Environment Bank is on an exciting journey, optimising our structure, processes and governance to support rapid growth. As a Project Manager covering the North or South of England, you will play a pivotal role in governing, shaping, and overseeing the successful delivery of habitat creation and enhancement projects. This role goes beyond day-to-day delivery management: you will act as a guardian of process, quality, and project discipline, ensuring that all projects at any stage in their lifecycle adhere to Environment Bank’s governance framework, project controls, and lifecycle standards.

You will work closely with ecologists, habitat delivery specialists, land managers, and wider stakeholders to embed a robust, repeatable way of working across the project portfolio. You will own the end-to-end project lifecycle, from early design and legal processes through capital works and into long-term asset management. You will also support the setup and ongoing management of complex sites, ensuring visibility, traceability, and strong control across all activities.

Capital works may include the creation and enhancement of woodland and scrub, species-rich grassland, wetland habitats, and associated infrastructure.

Responsibilities

Governance, Process & Project Controls

• Act as the primary governance and process enforcer across all projects in your region, ensuring adherence to Environment Bank’s project management framework, standards, and gateway requirements.
• Own and manage the full end-to-end project lifecycle, including gateway approvals, assurance activities, and documentation.
• Establish and maintain strong project controls, including risk, schedule, cost, change, and quality management.
• Lead the creation, maintenance, and optimisation of project processes to improve visibility, traceability, and organisational control.
• Provide oversight across multiple concurrent projects, ensuring they are well-governed, compliant, and progressing in line with agreed methodologies.

Planning, Delivery & Oversight

• Provide top level oversight of all projects in your region becoming the single point of contact and information for the national programme manager and Ops Director.
• Develop and own the integrated, end-to-end project plan, coordinating inputs from ecologists, habitat creation specialists, consents managers, and contractors.
• Monitor and support the setup and ongoing management of complex habitat bank sites, ensuring robust planning, sequencing, and operational readiness.
• Chair project meetings, drive decision-making, and maintain high-quality communication across multidisciplinary teams.
• Manage the project risk register, programme, and assurance schedule, ensuring proactive mitigation and escalation where required.
• Ensure safe delivery of all works, promoting a positive safety culture and ensuring compliance with relevant legislation and internal standards.

Commercial & Financial Management

• Set, manage, and monitor project budgets across the full lifecycle, ensuring accurate forecasting, cost control, and financial governance.
• Oversee contractor performance, KPIs, and delivery quality, ensuring works meet specification, timescales, and budget.

Reporting & Continuous Improvement

• Provide clear, timely reporting on project progress, risks, issues, and performance to internal stakeholders.
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date project information across relevant systems and tools.
• Lead lessons-learned activities, ensuring insights are captured, shared, and embed with the prog manager into future ways of working.
• Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives, helping to refine processes, strengthen governance, and enhance project delivery capability across the organisation.

Requirements

Essential

• Proven ability to lead and govern multidisciplinary project teams, ensuring strong project control and adherence to process.
• Experience managing project controls functions, including planning, estimating, financial control, and commercial management.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to influence, challenge, and drive action across diverse stakeholders.
• Strong project management capability, with a deep understanding of both the technical and behavioural aspects of programme delivery.
• Experience delivering projects with consent/permit restrictions and/or seasonal constraints.
• Demonstrable experience in risk management and structured project governance.
• Full UK clean driving licence and willingness to travel for regional site visits and events.

Desirable

• APM accredited or equivalent.
• Educated to degree level in a relevant subject, or equivalent professional experience.
• Experience in habitat creation, restoration, or nature recovery projects, ideally in a project management capacity.

Benefits

As an organisation, we believe that work should be fulfilling, inspiring, and balanced, so we’re creating a space where our team can thrive, both personally and professionally – providing flexible working arrangements, mental wellbeing support, and more.  

We offer... 

🎁Performance-based annual bonus up to 10% of salary 
💸Pension scheme with employer-matched contributions at 6% of salary 

🏖️ 30 days of annual leave, plus paid bank holidays, birthday, and wellbeing day 
➕ Option to purchase 5 additional days of annual leave after probation

🏡 Hybrid flexible working option

💼 Regional and departmental team co-working days 

🌞 Expenses-paid whole company meet twice a year 
🎗️ Team fundraising and charity events 
🎓 Ongoing career development with training and mentoring 

🩺 Medical cash back scheme to cover everyday healthcare costs

🧠 Employee assistance mental wellbeing support 
❤️‍🩹️ Enhanced sickness pay allowance