Penguin Random House UK
Project Manager (6m FTC)
How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
Project Manager - Strategic Projects
We have an exciting new opportunity to join our Strategic Projects team as their new Project Manager. This role is offered on a 6-month fixed term contract basis, with hybrid working from our office in Embassy Gardens, London (approx. 2 days per week).
Reporting to the Head of Strategic Projects
You’ll be responsible for leading teams to deliver projects that span one or more business departments. The Project Manager will manage resources, schedules, and financials whilst adhering to stage gate quality guidelines throughout the full project lifecycle. This also includes management of issues, risks, and project change requests to ensure successful and on-time project delivery.
The Team
The Strategic Projects team is a key part of Penguin Random House Operations (which also includes Technology, Facilities, and Distribution). We help Penguin Random House achieve transformational change, delivering initiatives based on our strategic priorities, and supporting essential replacements to core processes and systems as they become end-of-life. We support changes from initial Conversations and Prioritisations through to implementation, engaging with departments across PRH and DK to help changes take place and embed.
The Role
Key Responsibilities:
- Provide leadership to a project team by building and motivating team members to meet project goals, adhering to their responsibilities and project milestones.
- Full project life cycle ownership: successful project delivery will include full implementation from initiation to implementation/hypercare for one or more project initiatives simultaneously.
- Report on project success criteria results, metrics, test, and deployment management activities.
- Prepare estimates and detailed project plans for all phases.
- Procure adequate resources to achieve project objectives.
- Manage the day-to-day project activities and resources and chair the project management team meetings.
- Provide status reporting regarding project milestones, deliverable, dependencies, risks, and issues, communicating across leadership.
- Understand interdependencies between technology, operations, and business needs.
- Participate in feasibility studies, vendor selection, and proposals for evaluation by appropriate key stakeholders.
- Review various vendor statement of works (SOWs) and Specifications for requested goods and services.
- Set and continually manage project expectations while delegating and managing deliverable with team members and stakeholders.
- Develop and deliver progress reports, proposals, requirements documentation, and presentations to various audiences, including project team, sponsors, and key stakeholders.
- Manage project issues and risks to mitigate impact.
- Continue professional development in order to keep abreast of emerging technologies, methods, and best practices.
- Maintain and develop a good understanding of project management principles, methods, and techniques.
Reasons to use Rodeo
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
It searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
What You’ll Bring
Essential Criteria:
- Previous project management experience with a track record of managing plans from creation to execution. Specifically:
- Experience of managing file management or document management projects involving user data migration. Technical expertise is not required, but you should be confident leading delivery across business and technical teams, managing dependencies, and supporting the adoption of new ways of working.
- Experience of managing technology projects involving system integrations and SAP development. Technical expertise is not required, but you should be confident leading delivery across technical teams, managing dependencies, and working with specialist SMEs and suppliers.
- Experience with the Microsoft Office digital suite, including but not limited to Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, One Note, etc.
- Strong organisational skills, proactive, and comfortable working in a dynamic project delivery environment.
- Good knowledge of Waterfall/Agile project management, frameworks, methodologies, and associated governance structures - including, but not limited to Prince2 and Scrum.
- Ability to present and explain technical information to non-technical audiences, establishing rapport.
- Awareness of IT frameworks such as ITILv3 and the software development process, including requirement gathering, analysis/design, development tools/technologies, release/version control, testing, and deployment management.
Desirable Criteria:
- Proficient in MS Project or experienced in using a PPM Tool with planning capabilities.
- Experience of working with SAP, enterprise system integrations, and file management platforms (e.g., Box, Microsoft 365/SharePoint, Nasuni) would be advantageous but is not essential.
- Experience of using JIRA, Confluence, and other collaboration tools.
- Experience within creative, publishing, media industries is beneficial but not essential.
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
Application Instructions
Please apply with your CV and Cover Letter by 23:59 on Monday, 20th July 2026.
About Us
Here at Penguin, we believe in the power of authenticity and human creativity. When you apply for a position, we want to encourage you to showcase your unique voice. Throughout our recruitment process, please share your own thoughts, experiences, and skills. This helps us get a true sense of who you are and what you might bring to our team.
We celebrate creativity and diverse perspectives, so please be yourself! While we recognise AI tools can be helpful, we recommend using them thoughtfully to ensure your responses reflect you.
Disability Confident
As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we offer interviews to candidates with a disability who meet the essential criteria for the role, and opt-in on their application form. The essential criteria for this role are listed as part of the ‘What you’ll bring’ section.
There may be times when the volume of applications means we cannot take all eligible candidates to interview. We encourage you to tell us about any reasonable adjustments you may need by emailing PRHCareersUK@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk. Remember, you only need to share what you are comfortable with, for us to support your request.
Salary
The salary for this opportunity is £65,000-£70,000, depending on how your skills and experience align to the role, plus a generous bonus scheme and benefits.
Hybrid Working
While our offices across the UK are places to connect, collaborate, and celebrate with colleagues, we recognise that flexibility around where you work is just as important. For this role, we expect that you will work from our office in Embassy Gardens, London 2 days per week (typically Tuesday & Thursday). You will be required to be flexible on other days as required by the business.
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Skills
Location