Associate Director – Programme Management

Job Description

As an Associate Director in Programme Management and Programme Management Office delivery, you will have experience in playing pivotal roles in £250m-£500m+ major capital programmes, across complex construction environments within sectors such as Central Government, Industrial, Life Sciences, Data Centres and Defence.

You play a critical role in driving excellence in programme management performance, client delivery, business performance and team leadership. Supporting the Programme Director/Leader, you provide leadership across major programmes, ensuring clarity of direction, performance of programme functions, robust governance, compliance, outcomes delivery, and trusted client partnership.

You shape and deliver programme strategy and establish and maintain successful stakeholder relations with client leaders and your teams across complex construction environments.

You are a credible and accomplished programme delivery professional with a proven track record of delivering complex programmes. You bring significant construction programme expertise, with the ability to operate efficiently and effectively between strategic programme leadership and project-level detail, influencing key stakeholders and driving progress and detailed investment decisions.

You drive programmes from early-stage definition and mobilisation through execution, transition and benefits realisation. Working across multi-disciplinary teams and complex stakeholder environments, you provide the leadership, governance and commercial acumen required to deliver successful outcomes with clarity, control and confidence for our clients.

Key Responsibilities:

• Programme Leadership & Direction: Take end-to-end ownership of shaping, embedding, and communicating programme vision and direction. Effectively empower, motivate, and guide high-performing teams to drive success and cohesion across delivery activities.
• Assurance Framework: Maintain and deliver frameworks for robust management and control of the programme. Manage critical programme functions/services within the wider controls framework, and a focus on outcomes and the realisation of benefits back to the business case and organisational strategy.
• Commission Management and Business Development: Lead the successful commercial and contractual management of commissions, ensuring delivery excellence, client satisfaction and achievement of performance objectives. Develop trusted client partnerships, identify strategic growth opportunities and actively contribute to business development and market expansion activities.
• Stakeholder Strategy & Engagement: Create structured stakeholder engagement and decision-making frameworks, ensuring all programme stakeholders across seniority are effectively engaged and managed.
• Financial Leadership: Develop and implement robust processes to manage and report on all financial aspects of the programme, ensuring strong oversight and commercial governance. Oversee financial governance, ensuring robust financial reporting and management across the programme.
• Risk Strategy, Health & Safety Leadership: Identify and mitigate health and safety risks, enforcing safeguards to protect all involved in programme delivery. Lead the development and implementation of programme-wide risk management and assurance strategies. Champion a culture of safety, wellbeing and compliance, ensuring effective controls are in place to protect people, assets and programme objectives.
• People & Culture: Act as a first-class colleague and leader, establishing and positively contributing to the culture of internal and client-facing teams, and in internal talent development. Build capability, mentor teams, drive inclusion across the team and successfully carry out people management responsibilities to drive internal team performance and growth and our One Business culture.

Qualifications

This is an Associate Director level role. To excel in this role, you will have:

• Proven experience delivering complex transformation/real estate programmes (£100-£300m+) with demonstrable achievement of tangible benefits and outcomes for clients/employers.
• Ability to prioritise and optimise complex programmes, responding to internal and external influences over the programme lifecycle.
• Strong project delivery background with progression into programme delivery management within a construction environment
• Experience leading and working on large multidisciplinary teams including project management, project controls, technical and commercial teams
• Strong understanding and practical application of construction project delivery models, procurement routes and contracts (NEC, JCT)
• Good understanding of project controls methodologies and application including schedule management, cost control and risk and opportunity management at a project and programme level
• Experience operating at senior client levels – demonstrating very strong communication skills including presentation of data to influence outcomes
• Supply chain management experience
• Very good stakeholder engagement and communication skills, with demonstrable experience in dealing with third parties and customers
• A practitioner of industry best practice programme management methodologies, preferably within a real estate environment.
• Practical experience of required health and safety activities and good understanding of legislative requirements including CDM and Building Safety Act.
• An experienced and high quality people manager, committed to nurturing talent within the organisation and supporting professional growth among clients’ teams.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite and programme management tools, reporting systems and digital platforms, with a proactive approach to data, innovation and digital tools and strategy, including the use of AI.
• Education to a degree/postgraduate/equivalent level in a relevant technical discipline (eg Engineering, Construction Management, Quantity Surveying)
• Professional accreditation (eg. RICS, CIOB, APM)

Additional Information

Our inspired people share our vision and mission. We provide a great place to work, where each person has the opportunity and voice to effect change. We want our people to succeed both in work and life. To support this we promote a healthy, productive, and flexible working environment.

At Turner & Townsend, we celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We encourage applications from all sectors of the community, and we strongly believe that this diversity is what creates great solutions for our clients, bringing together people with different ideas and skills who want to push boundaries. In celebration of our diversity and to keep this agenda at the forefront of what we do, we have several internal networks, such as LGBT+, Diversity & Inclusion, and Race & Ethnicity which create a safe space for employees to express themselves and to drive change.

Please find out more about us at www.turnerandtownsend.com/

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SOX control responsibilities may be part of this role, which are to be adhered to where applicable.

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