Job Title: Programme Manager
Location: London 
Job Type: Permanent with a hybrid working environment 

Agencies: We will only work with recruitment partners on our preferred supplier list and will not engage with speculative CVs submitted.

Are you passionate about making life science life changing and delivering impact for patients? We want to hear from you. 

About the role:

As a key member of a dynamic, multidisciplinary environment, working with the Programme Lead, this role is responsible for leading the operational planning, coordination and delivery of complex, cross-functional programmes comprising multiple interdependent projects within a matrixed organisation and across other partner organisations. The Programme Manager ensures that strategic objectives are translated into integrated, achievable operational plans, overseeing delivery across scientific and enabling functions. This might be executed through close collaboration with Programme Manager counterparts in other partner organisations. 

The role is accountable for driving programme performance against agreed milestones, budgets and scope, enabling effective decision-making through clear governance, reporting and stakeholder engagement. Acting as a trusted partner to Functional Heads, Project Sponsors & external partners, the Programme Manager ensures alignment of priorities and delivery of high-quality outputs to maximise impact, while managing risk, complexity and interdependencies across the portfolio.

About you:

Key responsibilities include:

• Leading the operational delivery of complex, cross-functional programmes and projects, ensuring alignment to strategic objectives.
• Collectively working with the scientific project and programme leads translate strategy into integrated operational plans, defining scope, milestones, dependencies and delivery approach.
• Ensuring programme delivery is achieved to agreed timelines, budgets and quality standards.
• Developing, tracking, monitoring and reporting KPIs & Impact measures.
• Establishing and maintaining appropriate project and programme controls and reporting to enable effective governance.
• Providing a clear, insight-driven reporting on programme performance to enable effective decision-making.
• Acting as a trusted partner to Functional Heads, Project Sponsors, senior stakeholders and external partners to align priorities and drive outcomes.
• Building and maintaining strong cross-functional relationships across scientific, operational and enabling functions and, where required, across organisational boundaries.
• Overseeing the programme financials, including forecasting, budget tracking, management of variances and change requests.
• Leading the resource planning across projects, optimising utilisation and resolving capacity constraints.
• Proactively managing programme-level risks, issues and interdependencies, ensuring timely mitigation and resolution.
• Driving effective communication across stakeholders, ensuring clarity of objectives, progress and decisions.
• Promoting continuous improvement by embedding best practice, capturing lessons learned and contributing to the maturity of programme and portfolio management.

Essential experience required: 

• Extensive project and programme management experience within life sciences, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, or research sectors.
• Experience working in a matrix, cross‑functional environment.
• Skilled in building external networks to access capabilities to support delivery
• A thorough understanding of scientific principles relevant to preclinical and clinical development.
• Hands‑on experience managing timelines, budgets, risks, and deliverables for scientific projects.
• Strong communication and stakeholder‑engagement skills, including working with senior scientific staff and external partners

Desirable:

• Application of AI within project / programme / portfolio settings.
• Experience of applying different predictive and iterative project management methodologies (e.g. Waterfall, Scrum, Lean Six Sigma, etc) and practical applications and suitability within different project contexts.
• Extensive experience supporting governance committees, portfolio reviews, and strategic planning.

Education:

• Educated to at least BSc degree, life science subject strongly preferred.
• Formal qualification in project management preferred e.g. Association for Project Management (APM) or Project Management Institute (PMI) project management qualification.

Skills & abilities:

• Excellent planning and organising skills with ability to set clear expectations, drive accountability and the tenacity to drive projects to conclusion.
• Excellent communication, negotiation and interpersonal skills, ability to influence without authority in a matrix environment.
• Detail oriented.
• Ability to understand scientific and /or technical problems and break them down into manageable work packages.
• Ability to prioritise and problem-solve.
• Willingness to work within a team at pace and within a quickly evolving environment.
• Ability to navigate and manage uncertainty effectively.
• Able to right size project / programme management tool sets to meet requirements of exceptional portfolio delivery without over engineering processes and requirements.

About us:

LifeArc is a not-for-profit life science organisation, leading the way for change in rare diseases in the UK and supporting promising initiatives in global health. We seek out research in areas of unmet need that has great potential, providing support to help it become breakthroughs that change lives.

What we can offer you:

Focused on finding life changing solutions for underserved patients, our people thrive in an inclusive, and supportive environment that prioritises their health and wellbeing. Our multidisciplinary approach guarantees our people growth opportunities, while our culture of innovation and collaboration drives the impact we make delivering on our purpose of ‘putting patients at the centre of everything we do’. 

LifeArc is committed to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible and developing a culture that values differences. As a Disability Confident Employer, we guarantee an interview to candidates with a disability or long-term health condition who meet the essential criteria for the role.

Please note that in certain situations, such as high volumes of applications, it may not be practical to interview all eligible candidates. In these cases, we may need to select those who best meet the essential criteria. (At LifeArc, the Disability Confident Scheme’s ‘minimum criteria’ is referred to as ‘essential criteria’)

Salary will be determined by qualifications and experience along with other exceptional benefits. Because we understand everyone has different requirements, our flexible benefits allow you to choose those which are important to you. Our pension scheme offers employer contributions of up to 12%, private health insurance, and annual leave of 31 days PLUS bank holidays. 

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people from minority ethnic backgrounds, for example, are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At LifeArc we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace, so whatever your background or lived experience, if you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. Our top priority is finding the best candidate, and you may be just right for this or other roles. 

We all have potential. At LifeArc, you’ll discover what you can really do with it.