Project Manager

Location: London/Manchester/Flexible

A variety of Permanent or Fixed Term Contracts (2 years) are available at a Competitive rate with pension contributions and travel privileges.

FirstGroup plc is a FTSE 250 constituent and leading transport operator in the UK and North America. During the last year around 2 billion passengers relied on us to get to work, to school or college, to visit family and friends and much more. Each day every one of our 100,000 employees works hard to deliver vitally important services for our customers.  We are one of the UK's most experienced rail operators, carrying around 140m passengers across our three franchises and our open access operation.

We are currently looking to expand our rail consulting team. The team provides specialist and technical support, including project management expertise within FirstGroup and to our train operators. 

You will provide professional Project Management support to the delivery of projects across our businesses. The role will be deployed by the Policy & Rail Consultancy Director and will, on a day to day basis, be guided by the person responsible for the project they are managing.

You'll support the delivery of projects (which vary in value, complexity and business area), be responsible for ensuring that the projects are run and managed correctly and will provide reporting and project management support to the subject matter and technical experts within the team.

Key Skills

Plan, manage and implement projects end to end. This includes systematic reporting and alignment with the defined Governance and use of mandated tools such as P6 andWorkfront.

Support appropriate risk analysis, management and reporting at project and programme level

Track progress and provide regular reporting for your project(s)

Support management of project finance and associated approvals and reporting

Provide project management support to subject matter experts on the team

Offer and provide support to other project managers and projects across the business to enable a stronger project management community.

Commitment to continuous improvement including Post Implementation Review, regular reviews throughout the lifecycle and documentation of industry and business processes and procedures to ensure they can be consistently delivered and communicated.

What you'll need to succeed 

Are you a project manager who enjoys, driving projects to achieve their objectives with a clear focus on delivering?

Do you have excellent project management skills; attention to detail; and an ability to build productive relationships with the project team? 

Are you able to work independently, to determine priorities and drive forward projects in an enterprising way?. This is not an IT or technical project role, so is therefore suited to project managers with broad experience or experience in delivering business change.

Prior experience in the railway sector or in management of report-production (especially in bid environments) is desirable but not essential. 

What you'll get in return

Minimum of 10% contribution to your Pension (5% employer and 5% employee)

25 days Holiday plus National Bank Holidays

Travel Offers for Bus and Rail*

Free Bus Travel on your local FirstGroup Operated Network

Childcare Vouchers - free from Tax & National Insurance

Payroll Giving donate directly from your pay to a Charity of your Choice

Shopping Discounts including discounts and cashback on electrical goods, your weekly shop, holidays, cinema trips, car insurance, upgrading your mobile and lots more

All employee Share Schemes*

Save as You Earn - gives you the opportunity to save a regular amount each month for three years. At the end of the savings period, you can use your savings to buy shares at a discounted price set at the start of the Scheme, or take your savings as cash.

Buy as You Earn - allows you to buy shares each month, with 2 free matching' shares for each 3 shares you buy. You can vary the amount you save, or stop it at any time. You need to participate in the scheme for at least 3 years in order to receive the matching shares.

Employee Assistance Helpline free, confidential employee support service provided by an independent provider

*after 6 months of employment

FirstGroup plc welcomes applications from a diverse range of candidates regardless of background, gender, race, religious beliefs, disability, sexual orientation or age. We aspire to be a diverse and inclusive organisation because we believe that diversity brings benefits for our customers, communities and our people. Valuing our differences and drawing on our collective knowledge and experience helps us develop new services, open up new markets and broaden our customer.