Senior Project Manager

Location (UK): Office Hybrid* - London / Chesterfield
Hours: Full-time 35 hours per week
Salary: £53,809 per annum (London), £51,246 per annum (rest of UK)
Benefits: Read more about the excellent benefits we offer
Contract type: Fixed-term – 12 Month Maternity Cover
Travel: Occasional travel to either our London or Chesterfield office.
Closing date: 23:59, Sunday 30 March 2025

Join us and use your skills, knowledge, passion and energy to help us achieve a future free from arthritis.

Within the Finance and Corporate Resources Directorate, the Change Delivery Team are driving delivery of a strategic programme of work to transform Versus Arthritis into a more sustainable charity. As experts in project, programme, and change management, we are deployed to identify, deliver, and embed the organisation’s most complex changes. We also support colleagues to deliver the smaller scale changes and improvement activities in their plans by providing project management guidance, learning and development opportunities, and a suite of tools and templates. We are looking for an ambitious and proactive Senior Project Manager to join our tenacious team.

About the role

This role is a unique senior role perfect for an experienced project manager skilled in the day-to-day management of projects, with knowledge of diverse project management methodologies, and the enthusiasm and skills to upskill, coach and engage people of all levels in project management to help embed this way of working across the organisation.

This role sits within a dedicated team of project and programme experts, overseen by the Head of Change Delivery, and working in collaboration with senior leaders across the organisation to deliver the charities’ most high-risk, high-value, and complex change projects within our Sustainability Programme. The purpose of this role is to;

Advocate for and maintain our established organisational project management approach, including project management standards, documentation templates, and resources.
Evolve, and deliver, a learning and development offer to build project management capability and confidence across the charity.
Develop creative ways to engage colleagues in the Sustainability Programme to take them on the change journey.
Refine and deliver a support offer to assist teams in delivering their own small-scale projects and improvement activities- likely through mentoring, coaching, and workshop facilitation.
Undertake deployments to manage delivery of complex change projects within the Sustainability Programme, ensuring they are delivered on time, to budget, and to the required standard. 
Line manage a small team of Project Officers.

About you

If your knowledge, skills and experience include the following then we’d love to hear from you:

Exceptional, proven, project and change management skills
The ability to effectively mentor and upskill others in project management.
Highly effective listening, verbal, and written communication skills
Experience in effectively monitoring, analysing, and reporting on major project variables including people, process, financials, and data.
Strong planning skills with the ability to deliver to deadlines, work independently, manage multiple concurrent priorities in a fast-paced environment.
Experience in line management of a small team.
Advanced Microsoft Office skills (SharePoint, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel in particular) and some familiarity with Monday.com would be beneficial.

*As a hybrid worker the expectation is that you will spend around 40% of your working time in our office spaces or working in community settings. As an inclusive employer we will consider home-based working for anyone where office-based hybrid working would be a barrier to being able to work for us, for example for someone living with a long-term health condition or disability.

Download the job description and person specification for the Senior Project Manager role (Word 52.3KB).

Benefits

Your excellent benefits include:

Flexible hours, environments and working practices to promote a healthy work/life balance.
Health and wellbeing support – including the Employee Assistance Programme (free confidential 24/7 support with mental health, legal and financial queries).
Simplyhealth cash plan.
Supportive and inclusive culture, with a wide range of employee networks and support groups available to join.
Learning and personal development opportunities.
Competitive annual leave, with the option to buy/sell up to five days per year.
Generous pension plan, with employer contribution of up to 10%.
Life Assurance plan (4 x salary).

How to apply

You must be based, and hold the right to work, in the UK to apply for this position.

To apply you MUST submit:

a concise, up-to-date CV
along with a completed Application form (Word 41.2KB) demonstrating how you meet the key requirements set out in the job description and person specification for the Senior Project Manager role (Word 52.3KB). All sections must be completed.

Email both documents as Word or PDF attachments by 23:59 hours, Sunday 30 March 2025 to recruitment@versusarthritis.org. If you have a health condition that prevents you from following the steps above, please email us regarding alternative ways to apply. 

Application deadline and shortlisting 

We advise candidates to apply early as we reserve the right to close applications ahead of this date.  
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

We do not wish to receive contact from agencies or media sales. 

Please note that we do not use Artificial Intelligence (AI) during our recruitment and selection processes, and we would respectfully ask that you also refrain from using AI during the selection process. Whilst we do recognise that AI may be a beneficial tool for some when aiding research and preparation for an application or interview, we want to maintain a fair, inclusive and positive recruitment experience at Versus Arthritis where candidates can feel supported to demonstrate their experience, knowledge, and skills without the use of AI generated answers.

Interview

Interviews expected: First interview on either Tuesday 8 or Wednesday 9 April 2025 at our London or Chesterfield office.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we guarantee you will be offered an interview if you disclose a disability and demonstrate sufficient evidence within your application that you meet the essential criteria for this role. We will also make any reasonable adjustments you may require for your interview.

About us

We have made a commitment in our Diversity and Inclusion Strategy to increase the diversity of our charity and we welcome candidates from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. We want our employees, volunteers and trustees to represent the broad diversity of the communities of which we are a part.

There are over 10 million people living with arthritis. That’s one in six, with over half of those living in pain every single day. The impact is huge as the condition slowly intrudes on everyday life – affecting the ability to work, care for a family, to move free from pain and to live independently. Yet arthritis is often dismissed as an inevitable part of ageing or shrugged off as ‘just a bit of arthritis’. We don’t think that this is OK. Versus Arthritis is here to change that.

Versus Arthritis is committed to keeping children, young people and vulnerable adults safe from harm. During the recruitment process we will undertake safer recruitment practices and relevant checks to ensure applicants are suitable to work with children, young people and vulnerable adults.