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The Project Manager leads and manages the project and project team. They are responsible for driving and overseeing the delivery of the project to ensure objectives are clearly defined and achieved within agreed time, cost, and quality constraints. The Project Manager plays a key role in project governance and works with stakeholders to ensure agreed project outputs are delivered, enabling benefits to be realised.
| Responsibility | Detail |
|---|---|
| Delivery | Defines and leads the project to deliver agreed outcomes within time, cost, and quality constraints. |
| Project management | Manages and leads the project and team on a day-to-day basis. Sets project controls, designs the project structure suitable for each stage, and selects appropriate delivery methodologies. |
| Business case | Coordinates the development of the business case. |
| Budget | Tracks delivery within the budget. |
| Resources | Schedules and manages resources to deliver the project using data insights. May work independently or with a small team. |
| Benefits realisation | Ensures benefits are identified, understood, measured, tracked, and owned. Implements and monitors a benefits realisation strategy to ensure longer-term delivery of benefits against the business case. |
| Stakeholder management | Identifies key stakeholders and develops effective relationships. |
| Risks and issues | Identifies and monitors project risks and issues, develops mitigating actions, and escalates as needed. |
| Governance | Provides key reports and supports effective governance and decision-making. |
| Assurance | Supports or establishes appropriate project assurance measures. |
| Change management | Ensures effective change management processes are in place to agree and documents changes to deliverables with stakeholders. |
| Guidance and support | Seeks guidance, support, and coaching from the project community, commits to personal development, and promotes effective individual and team performance. |
| Project performance and controls | Develops a project plan and applies project principles to achieve stated objectives. Sets and monitors project controls and tracks delivery against milestones. |
| Digital and data | Uses digital tools to analyse data to understand progress against the plan and takes mitigation actions and exploits opportunities. Uses data to forecast future outcomes and address issues before they escalate. Provides actionable data driven insights to ensure stakeholders are kept informed and engaged throughout the project lifecycle. |
Suitable for individuals with experience as part of a large or medium complexity project team, or as a specialist or workstream lead for a small, low complexity project.
Entry-level position for individuals with relevant skills gained in a non-project environment. A capability assessment is required to identify gaps and development needs.
None: No knowledge and no experience.
Awareness: Basic knowledge and limited or no experience. You understand how it can be applied. You can describe the benefits and importance. You may have applied it in a low complexity project under supervision or assisted others in delivering it.
Working: Working knowledge and practical experience. You have a good understanding of this competence. You have applied this independently in low complexity projects and/or under supervision in more complex projects.
Practitioner: Detailed knowledge and significant experience. You have a deep understanding of this competence. You have applied this independently in medium and/or highly complex projects. You advise and may supervise others in the delivery of this competence. You can adapt your approach to meet the requirements of the project.
Expert: Expert knowledge and experience. You are considered an expert within government and in the wider profession. You have applied this competence in multiple complex projects. You have been responsible for developing unique variations to suit specific situations. You champion capability development in this area.
| Competency area | Level |
|---|---|
Commercial and procurement
The ability to work with commercial colleagues to procure goods and services and manage contracts effectively to deliver the work.
|
Awareness |
Requirements management
The ability to capture stakeholder needs, assess, define and justify those needs to arrive at an agreed schedule of requirements for the work.
|
Working |
Solutions development
The ability to identify, document and analyse the various delivery options and select the optimal solution for the work.
|
Awareness |
Planning
The ability to define the fundamental components of the work in terms of its scope, deliverables, time scales, resource requirements and budget. It also includes the production of broader plans incorporating risk and quality to provide a consolidated overview of the work.
|
Working |
Scheduling
The ability to develop, produce and maintain schedules for activities that take account of dependencies, resource requirements and constraints in order to enable the efficient realisation of benefits.
|
Working |
Resource management
The ability to identify, profile, secure and manage the resources required to deliver the work.
|
Working |
Budgeting and cost management
The ability to estimate costs, produce a budget and control forecasts and actual spend against budget.
|
Working |
Risk and issue management
The ability to systematically identify and monitor risks and issues, planning how to mitigate or respond to those risks and issues and implementing the responses.
|
Working |
Quality management
The ability to plan, develop, maintain and apply quality management processes to ensure adherence to those standards throughout the lifecycle of the work.
|
Working |
Business change and implementation
The ability to integrate the solution into operations ensuring that activities are planned and completed to enable the business to implement the change and realise the benefits.
|
Awareness |
Governance
The ability to clearly define roles, responsibilities and accountabilities and establish controls and approval routes appropriate to each stage of the work to monitor progress and compliance.
|
Working |
Frameworks and methodologies
The ability to identify and amend appropriate frameworks and methodologies to enable a consistent and efficient approach to delivery at all stages of the lifecycle.
|
Working |
Stakeholder engagement
The ability to systematically identify, analyse and communicate with stakeholders, using appropriate channels, to ensure all those impacted by the change are engaged, taking account of their levels of influence and particular interests.
|
Working |
Assurance
The ability to establish, plan and manage reviews at appropriate points through the life cycle to provide confidence that the work can be delivered to the agreed outcomes and benefits within time, cost, quality, and other constraints.
|
Working |
Change control
The ability to establish protocols to manage and document all requests for changes to scope, timescales, costs, benefits or other approved baselines for the work. This includes the capture, evaluation and approval or rejection of change requests.
|
Working |
Business case development
The ability to prepare, develop, commission and update business cases to justify the initiation and continuation of projects in terms of benefits, value for money and risk.
|
Awareness |
Asset allocation
The ability to recommend how financial and other resources should be allocated between projects in order to optimise the organisation's return on investment (ROI). This includes the determination of which projects should be initiated, continued or closed to best support the organisations strategic objectives.
|
Awareness |
Benefits management
The ability to identify, value, plan and track benefits to justify investment and ensure the expected outcomes and social value are realised.
|
Working |
Knowledge management
The ability to identify, share and promote best practices and lessons learned to create a culture of learning and good practice that supports continuous improvement to optimise project delivery.
|
Awareness |
Digital and data
The ability to effectively leverage digital tools and data analytics for better project delivery outcomes. Combining an understanding of digital technologies with the ability to manage, interpret and utilise data to make informed decisions, improve efficiency and achieve outcomes and benefits.
|
Working |
Sustainability
The ability to incorporate environmental and social considerations into the strategic objectives of the work and to effectively identify, assess and manage these throughout the lifecycle, seeking to maximise benefits and mitigate negative impacts.
|
Working |
None: No knowledge and no experience.
Awareness: Basic knowledge and limited or no experience. You understand how it can be applied. You can describe the benefits and importance. You may have applied it in a low complexity project under supervision or assisted others in delivering it.
Working: Working knowledge and practical experience. You have a good understanding of this competence. You have applied this independently in low complexity projects and/or under supervision in more complex projects.
Practitioner: Detailed knowledge and significant experience. You have a deep understanding of this competence. You have applied this independently in medium and/or highly complex projects. You advise and may supervise others in the delivery of this competence. You can adapt your approach to meet the requirements of the project.
Expert: Expert knowledge and experience. You are considered an expert within government and in the wider profession. You have applied this competence in multiple complex projects. You have been responsible for developing unique variations to suit specific situations. You champion capability development in this area.
| Competency area | Level |
|---|---|
Visible leadership
The ability to engage, motivate and coach others. To act as a role model and inspire and empower others. Aligned to the leadership Civil Service behaviour.
|
Working |
Credible action
The ability to promote the wider public good in all actions and to act in a morally, legally and socially appropriate manner at all times. Challenges unacceptable behaviour. Aligned to the leadership Civil Service behaviour.
|
Working |
Working with ambiguity
The ability to work in an environment of uncertainty and continual change. Able to feel comfortable making decisions and setting direction without having the full picture and re-focus as details emerge. Can apply knowledge and techniques to reduce ambiguity. Aligned to the making effective decisions Civil Service behaviour.
|
Awareness |
Collaboration
The ability to establish and develop productive relationships with internal and external stakeholders, bringing people together to benefit the project. Aligned to the working together Civil Service behaviour.
|
Working |
Influencing
The ability to influence, change and impact decisions with both internal and external stakeholders. Aligned to the communicating and influencing Civil Service behaviour.
|
Working |
Conflict resolution
The ability to recognise, anticipate and effectively deal with existing or potential conflicts at an individual, team or strategic level. Aligned to the working together and leadership Civil Service behaviours.
|
Working |
Inspiring others
The ability to create and present a compelling vision and set clear direction, that motivates others to work towards a common goal. Aligned to the leadership Civil Service behaviour.
|
Working |
Resilience
The ability to adapt to changing circumstances and adverse situations whilst remaining calm, reassuring others and maintaining performance. Aligned to the delivering at pace Civil Service behaviour.
|
Working |
Innovation
The ability to think of, research and apply new ideas and ways of doing things. Encourages and supports innovations from others, is willing to experiment and follow ideas through to implementation. Aligned to the changing and improving Civil Service behaviour.
|
Working |
Culture change
The ability to plan, lead and effect positive cultural change, securing commitment and buy-in, and promoting a positive long term vision. Recognises when broader culture change is necessary to deliver a project. Aligned to the seeing the big picture, and changing and improving Civil Service behaviours.
|
Awareness |
This role profile is for a project manager at SEO grade. This is the typical job title for this role.
Hiring managers should refer to the standardised job titles framework for guidance on which titles to use for recruitment.