Senior Project Manager

NATS is a leading air navigation services specialist, handling 2.2 million flights in 2013/14, covering the UK and eastern North Atlantic. NATS provides air traffic control from centres at Swanwick, Hampshire and Prestwick, Ayrshire. NATS also provides air traffic control services at 14 UK airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow; at Gibraltar Airport and, in a joint venture with Ferrovial, at a number of airport towers in Spain.

Building on its reputation for operational excellence and innovation, NATS also offers aerodrome, data, engineering and consultancy solutions to customers worldwide, including airports, air traffic service providers and Governments.

NATS are recruiting for a number of Senior Project Managers to work within the Programmes team on different project types. This is an exciting opportunity to join the diverse team, at a time when our portfolio is growing

The Programmes division is a portfolio of Capital investment programmes in NATS; the Long Term Investment Programme has an annual portfolio spend of £180million with over 120 live projects at any one time, which is due to grow in the near future as we deliver high profile projects .

We deliver software development, infrastructure and airspace change projects into a live, safety critical operational system. All in collaboration with various stakeholders, often requiring an innovative approach and considered change management

The successful candidate(s) will effectively lead a number of multi million pound projects within 12-36+ months timescales

Principle Accountabilities

- Lead the planning, execution and delivery of projects on time, budget and accepted by the customer, whilst ensuring all stakeholders fully engaged
- Create and maintain strong relationships with the wider project team, internal and external stakeholders, trade unions, suppliers and regulators
- Development and maintain fully resourced project plans using work breakdown structures, budget management and reporting
- Robust risk identification, management and mitigation
- Support the negotiation and letting of all supplier contracts associated with his/her Project(s) with the support of personnel from other NATS departments
- Be able to effectively manage all supplier relationships
- Responsible for determining and implementing the optimal approach for organising the project team(s)
- Effectively line managing other Project Managers
- Communicate both formally and informally key messages to promote clear understanding across the wider team
- Follow appropriate NATS processes required for the successful delivery of the projects
- Responsible for committing to expenditure on capital, revenue and manpower, up to an approved level
- Ensure that, where decisions are required from a greater strategic perspective, these are identified, escalated, and managed to conclusion
- Ensure the maintenance of a high level of individual expertise and credibility through continuing professional development

Qualifications and Skills

- Hold a Project Management qualification
- Practical experience in modern Project Management methodologies is essential
- An Engineering or relevant Science degree or equivalent experience
- Delivery of projects in a construction environment and/or experience of software development projects advantageous
- Experienced in Change Management is desired
- Experience of Air Traffic Management desirable
- Good level of business understanding and a capability to understand and balance all project resource issues
- Excellent interpersonal skills and judgement required
- A good level of business and commercial understanding
- Capability to balance short and long term project issues
- The ability to adapt to and provide strong leadership to a variety of stakeholder

In addition to salary, NATS offers a range of excellent benefits which includes 28 days leave plus statutory and a top class contributory DC pension scheme.

To apply for this role please click the APPLY button.