Please note this position can be based from any of our UK offices however travel to other offices to attend team meetings will be required, including in person quarterly planning sessions.

Responsibilities

• Lead Enterprise Portfolio Management (EPM) across programmes and projects, providing oversight of demand and ensuring delivery is aligned to organisational and Digital Services Strategy, including ownership of the execution of quarterly cycles.
• Ensure effective governance of programmes and projects, including alignment to the Digital Services Strategy, financial and resource assurance, benefits realisation, and intervention where delivery risks or business case benefits cannot be met, supporting the targeted 80/20 planned versus reactive demand model.
• Work closely with operational delivery leaders and senior stakeholders across the directorate to align cross-functional activities, identify opportunities for enterprise-wide technology change, and provide leadership for the delivery of those change initiatives.
• Drive continuous improvement in portfolio, service and capacity management, keeping abreast of industry best practice, setting policy and standards, embedding efficient ways of working, and providing direction on the use of appropriate tools, methodologies and justified new investments.
• Provide strong people leadership, managing and developing the EPM team to deliver portfolio operations and business process improvement, while owning team budgets, forecasts and cost management to ensure effective and transparent use of resources.

About You

• Significant experience operating in complex IT programme and portfolio environments, leading high-risk and high-value initiatives, prioritising demand and resources based on strategic intent and return on investment, and ensuring effective governance across the full delivery lifecycle including designing and leading structured quarterly planning cycles that bring clarity, alignment and accountability.
• Proven ability to lead and facilitate discussions with senior stakeholders, including Heads of Service, Digital Services leadership teams and executive audiences, confidently accepting challenge, providing constructive challenge in return, and bringing clarity to complex or constrained situations.
• Demonstrates strong knowledge of current technologies used to build and operate digital services, with the ability to understand technical plans, service design and delivery activities sufficiently to enable informed, evidence-based decision-making at pace.
• Holds a recognised project or programme management accreditation, or equivalent professional experience gained through leading complex digital and technology portfolios.
• A confident and credible leader who leads from the front, successfully implementing change across teams and functions, applying lean, continuous improvement and lifecycle-based approaches, and creating an environment where teams are supported to perform, improve and deliver sustainable outcomes.

About Us

Here at National Highways, we manage and improve England's motorways and major A roads, helping our customers have safer, smoother and more reliable journeys. Our priorities are safety, customers and delivery, and at the core of this, are our values of passion, integrity, safety, teamwork and ownership.

The Digital Services Directorate is helping to reshape the way National Highways operates by delivering digital, data, and technology services across all areas, from frontline to back office, in a modern and efficient manner. Our vision is to develop integrated information and technology that empowers our colleagues and provides real-time information to our customers, as well as integrating with intelligent vehicle and transport systems as they evolve, to enhance journey safety and reliability.

Current employees will be appointed in accordance with our established pay policy.

We are committed to creating a diverse environment and welcome applicants from all backgrounds.