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Role summary

The Change Manager prepares the business for the changes delivered by the project. They act as a bridge between the project and business users, ensuring that activities are planned and completed to help the business implement the agreed change and realise the benefits.

Typical role responsibilities

Responsibility Detail
Delivery and leadership Leads business change activities and collaborates with the project team to achieve the benefits and outcomes outlined in the business case. Champions best practices and provides expert advice to team members and the project community. Assesses and understands the impact on stakeholders to enhance their adoption of the change.
Business case Assists the Project Manager in preparing and updating the change management elements of the business case.
Change products Supports the Project Manager in creating the required business change products. Leads engagement with key contacts and ensures products are fit for purpose.
Change planning Establishes and maintains the change plan for a specific area of responsibility.
Business readiness Identifies, qualifies, and updates business readiness criteria across areas of responsibility before implementation. Supports tracking to determine ‘approve/refuse’ for go-live decisions.
Benefits management Supports the Benefits Manager, Project Manager, and stakeholders in identifying and leveraging benefits. Incorporates benefits management into all change activities.
Change communication Works with the Stakeholder Manager and Project Manager to create and maintain a communications plan related to change messaging. Provides content for communications across areas of responsibility.
Stakeholder management Identifies and classifies stakeholders, ensuring their inclusion in the stakeholder engagement plan. Serves as the point of contact for a larger pool of more senior stakeholders.
Guidance and support Provides direction and guidance to the team. Leads change activities across areas of responsibility.
Digital and data Collects and shares data in line with data standards. Uses digital tools to manage change initiatives effectively, ensuring that data analytics support the identification and tracking of change impacts and the adoption of new ways of working.

Entry route

Project delivery professional

Suitable for individuals with relevant skills and experience, or as a progression from PMO or previous change experience.

Non-project delivery professional

Suitable for individuals with appropriate skills gained in a non-project environment, such as change management and management or other project roles.

Technical competencies

Help with competency levels

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
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.
Awareness
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.
Awareness
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.
Awareness
Resource management
The ability to identify, profile, secure and manage the resources required to deliver the work.
Awareness
Budgeting and cost management
The ability to estimate costs, produce a budget and control forecasts and actual spend against budget.
Awareness
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.
Awareness
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.
Practitioner
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.
Awareness
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.
Awareness
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.
Awareness
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.
Awareness
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
Benefits management
The ability to identify, value, plan and track benefits to justify investment and ensure the expected outcomes and social value are realised.
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.
Awareness

Behavioural competencies

Help with competency levels

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.
Awareness
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.
Awareness
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

Job titles for recruitment

This role profile is for a business change 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.

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