We’re West Coast Partnership Development (WCPD) and we’re shaping new high-speed train services for the UK. It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity to bring about a step change in rail travel and we are excited to play an important part. Working in partnership with HS2 Ltd, FirstGroup, Trenitalia, and the Department for Transport, we’re designing and developing the new services which will run on the new High Speed 2 railway and the existing West Coast Main Line.

Our goal is to maximise the government’s investment to create a world-class railway with faster journey times, more capacity, and a customer experience that’s second to none.

Our vision is for the High-Speed Services to be the best travel experience in Britain. One that is easy, comfortable, and impressive. We’ll do this by keeping things simple, removing sources of stress, and prioritising our customers.

 We would like to present an exciting opportunity to join the WCPD Strategy & Transition team as a Senior Project Manager. 

The Senior Project Manager will be responsible for the effective day to day planning and management of a strategic change programme that will ensure WCPD are ready to launch of high speed services. This will be a complex programme, that will require a significant change in the business outlook and scale to take WCPD from the current Design Phase, where we are advising on future requirements, through to being the operator of services.

You will be involved at the very start, supporting the team to define and cost a multi-year programme using WCPD processes and tools to ensure on time delivery of high-quality outputs to and responsible for ensuring the programme is defined and then delivered to best practice standards.

You will collaborate closely with key stakeholders, including Avanti West Coast, the Department for Transport and HS2 to ensure that everything is in place to launch services and deliver the end state.

This includes providing project management and stakeholder management expertise to ensure the delivery of projects with varying value, complexity and/or business criticality across the programme.

You will work with the Head of Transition and Strategy and Transition Director to define the projects within the programme and ensure that projects are run and managed correctly (according to WCPD policies and processes). As part of a wider project management community, you will also provide project management and technical support to the wider projects team.

The key responsibilities of the role include:

• Define and agree the scope and structure of assigned projects within the Programme in consultation with senior stakeholders.
• Plan and manage the delivery of projects/ contractual commitments including resources to ensure on time delivery and within budget.
• Plan and manage project budgets including resources to ensure on time delivery and within budget.
• Manage, including the drafting of key programme deliverables ensuring quality, compliance and consistency.
• Manage assigned projects/ contractual commitments using WCPD delivery lifecycle, processes and tools including best practice.
• Identify and manage stakeholders at all levels, including inputs, reviews, communications and working groups, ensuring that stakeholder management is applied consistently throughout the programme and project lifecycle.
• Input into the annual business planning (ABP) process, supporting the Programme Director and Project Leads to consolidate and refine project activities, resourcing and plans into a coherent narrative.
• Identify, mitigate, manage, and report on Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies (RAID) at a project, programme or portfolio/business level ensuring that appropriate focus is given to the RAID, and that suitable action is planned and executed to minimise the impact of risk or issues.
• Provide consistent periodic reporting of project status including providing input for the annual reporting process.
• Manage change using the WCPD change control process and guidelines.
• Implement WCPD governance and assurance processes.
• Identify and implement areas for improvement using Lessons Learned and regular reviews throughout the delivery lifecycle to feed into the refinement of the Programme Management Methodology toolkit.

Ensuring productive, effective and efficient relationships with key stakeholders including:

• WCPD and AWC stakeholders (including but not limited to Heads of, Directors and stakeholders in First Trenitalia).
• HS2 Limited, DfT and other external stakeholders (e.g., Network Rail, GBRTT, Consultants, Suppliers - including contractors) up to an including relevant technical and programme Directors; subject matter experts and commercial managers.
• WCPD Directors, Programme Manager and Head of Programme Delivery

The role is based in London and with the requirement for some travel on our network at times. The expectation will be a minimum of 3 days per week in the office.

Salary is circa £65,000 per annum depending on skills & experience.

West Coast Partnership Development

West Coast Partnership comprises two distinct parts – Avanti West Coast and West Coast Partnership Development. Avanti West Coast runs the InterCity West Coast train services from London to north England, north Wales and Scotland.

Our work in WCPD is focused on developing plans for what the new high-speed services will look like (customer experience), how they will work (railway operations) and how we will start running new services and trains (mobilisation). Over the next 10 years we will develop and implement a programme (HS2 Ltd are building the new railway and associated infrastructure).

https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/about-us/a-pioneering-partnership

Your application

At WCPD, we value the differences that make each of us outstanding! We recognise the benefits of building a diverse workforce and employing people from diverse backgrounds, which includes their race, religion, age, gender, gender identity, disability and sexual orientation.

Everyone who joins us becomes part of our close-knit team. We're committed to ensuring that we are expansive and a place where people are encouraged to be themselves, and not an edited version to fit in. A place where differences are encouraged, recognised, accepted and put to good use!