Portfolio Delivery Lead

Crawford and Company London, United Kingdom

Posted 19 hours ago Permanent Competitive

Job Description

To bring structure, focus and delivery grip to the UK change portfolio, ensuring priority initiatives are clear, governed and moving forward.
A senior, hands-on role providing portfolio visibility, practical governance and direct delivery of one or two priority projects.
Working with the UKI IT Director, senior leaders, business sponsors and two BAs, the role will identify risks, dependencies and blockers, ensuring change has clear ownership, realistic plans and active sponsorship.
The role suits someone confident operating in a lean environment, influencing across teams and bringing structure and pace without unnecessary bureaucracy

Responsibilities

Portfolio visibility and reporting:
- Build and maintain a single, clear view of all UK change projects, using simple, meaningful reporting and visualisations that enable ELT-level decision making.
Executive sponsorship and governance:
- Ensure key projects have the right business sponsorship, decision-making forums, escalation routes and governance cadence in place.
Prioritisation and dependency management:
- Identify competing priorities, delivery constraints, resource pressures and cross-project dependencies, escalating where decisions are needed.
Project delivery:
- Lead one or two larger or more complex projects directly, taking ownership of planning, delivery, risks, issues, budget, stakeholders and outcomes.
Support for project owners:
- Provide practical delivery guidance to Business Analysts and business-led project owners, helping improve planning, governance, risk management and delivery discipline
Stakeholder management:
- Build trusted relationships with senior leaders, business customers, IT teams, vendors and external partners, communicating clearly and pragmatically at all levels.
Risk, issue and change management:
- Maintain robust oversight of portfolio and project-level risks, issues and changes, ensuring appropriate mitigation, escalation and decision making.
Benefits and outcomes:
- Maintain focus on business value, ensuring projects remain aligned to agreed outcomes and that benefits are understood, tracked and communicated.
Continuous improvement:
- Work with the global PPMO and local teams to improve project delivery practices, templates, reporting and governance without creating unnecessary bureaucracy

Qualifications

Significant experience in senior delivery roles, such as Senior Project Manager, Programme Manager, Portfolio Manager or Delivery Lead.
Proven ability to operate independently in a lean team, balancing strategic oversight with hands-on delivery.
Experienced working with senior leaders, sponsors, IT teams, vendors and business stakeholders across multiple functions.
Brings calm judgement, credibility and constructive challenge in complex or ambiguous delivery environments.
Relevant qualifications are beneficial, such as PRINCE2, PMP, Agile, MSP or MoP, but practical delivery experience is essential.
Clear communicator with strong stakeholder management.
Able to influence, challenge and build trust at all levels.
Strong planning, prioritisation and problem-solving.
Comfortable managing ambiguity, conflict and competing demands.
Highly organised, pragmatic and delivery-focused.
Able to create pace, structure and accountability