Project Manager – ICT Projects

MAKAMIN RECRUITMENT; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 300,000 - 600,000; Full time

Job summary

MAKAMIN RECRUITMENT is seeking an experienced Project Manager – ICT Projects in Abu Dhabi to lead delivery, upgrades, and lifecycle management of complex ICT initiatives. You will coordinate customers, internal teams, OEMs, system integrators and subcontractors to ensure scope, schedule, budget and quality targets are met.

The role requires a strong ICT background, 8+ years in technology project management, and excellent English communication. UAE government/defence experience is advantageous.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Technology, Computer Science, Telecommunications or a related discipline.
• Minimum 8 years ICT/technology experience, including at least 5 years managing technology projects.
• Proven experience managing medium-to-large ICT or systems-integration projects.
• Experience coordinating multiple OEMs, system integrators, subcontractors and technology partners.
• Strong stakeholder-management and communication skills.
• Excellent written and spoken English.

Responsibilities

• Manage ICT projects from contract handover through planning, implementation, testing, acceptance, administrative & financial closure.
• Manage upgrades, enhancements, expansions, integrations and technology-refresh initiatives.
• Develop and maintain project plans covering scope, schedule, resources, risks, dependencies and milestones.
• Coordinate multiple workstreams and ensure dependencies are identified and managed.
• Ensure project activities are properly planned, approved, executed and transitioned into support.

Skills

Project management

ICT knowledge

Stakeholder management

Vendor coordination

Change control

Budget tracking

English communication

Security clearance ability

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering/IT

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Project Manager – ICT Projects to manage the delivery, enhancement, and lifecycle of complex ICT projects and technology environments.

The role will cover a mix of new implementations, upgrades, integrations, expansions and technology-refresh initiatives across enterprise ICT environments.

Manage delivery under customer framework agreements, including project/order tracking, scope and change control, commercial utilisation, milestone management and compliance with agreed contractual terms.

The Project Manager will coordinate customers, internal teams, OEMs, system integrators, distributors and specialist subcontractors and will be responsible for ensuring projects are delivered within agreed scope, schedule, budget and quality requirements.

The candidate does not need to be a technical specialist but should have sufficient ICT understanding to manage technical teams and vendors, understand key dependencies and identify potential project risks.

Experience in UAE Government, Defence or other mission-critical ICT environments is preferred, although candidates with strong enterprise ICT project-management experience will also be considered.

Key Responsibilities

Project & Lifecycle Management

• Manage ICT projects from contract handover through planning, implementation, testing, acceptance, administrative & financial closure.
• Manage upgrades, enhancements, expansions, integrations and technology-refresh initiatives.
• Develop and maintain project plans covering scope, schedule, resources, risks, dependencies and milestones.
• Coordinate multiple workstreams and ensure dependencies are identified and managed.
• Ensure project activities are properly planned, approved, executed and transitioned into support.
• Track technology lifecycle, end-of-life, end-of-support and obsolescence risks.
• Manage multiple concurrent projects and initiatives where required.
• Act as the primary project-level interface with the customer.
• Coordinate with customer technical teams, business stakeholders and management.
• Conduct progress meetings, governance reviews and escalation meetings.
• Maintain clear records of decisions, approvals, dependencies and customer actions.
• Manage expectations while protecting agreed scope and contractual commitments.
• Ensure customer responsibilities and dependencies are identified and followed up.
• Manage OEMs, system integrators, distributors, consultants and subcontractors.
• Maintain clear ownership of responsibilities across all project participants.
• Monitor partner performance against milestones, deliverables, SLAs and support obligations.
• Prevent technical issues or scope gaps from being passed between vendors without ownership.
• Validate vendor and subcontractor deliverables before acceptance.
• Challenge unsupported requests for additional resources, schedule extensions or out-of-scope work.
• Escalate delivery, quality or performance issues where required.

Scope, Change & Commercial Control

• Maintain control of contractual scope, assumptions, exclusions and dependencies.
• Identify potential scope creep and additional requirements at an early stage.
• Assess changes for cost, schedule, operational and delivery impact.
• Maintain appropriate change-control records and approvals.
• Monitor project budgets, committed costs and forecast expenditure.
• Validate subcontractor and company invoices against completed and accepted work.
• Support variation orders, claims and commercial discussions where required.

Risk, Testing & Acceptance

• Maintain project risk, issue, assumption and dependency registers.
• Identify risks relating to delivery, integration, readiness, vendor performance and technology dependencies.
• Coordinate testing for new implementations, upgrades and integrations.
• Ensure appropriate system, integration, performance, security and user acceptance testing is completed where applicable.
• Ensure rollback, recovery and business-continuity considerations are addressed for major changes.
• Confirm agreed acceptance criteria are completed before project or milestone closure.

Procurement & Resource Coordination

• Coordinate internal and external resources required for project delivery.
• Work with Procurement and Supply Chain teams on hardware, software, licences and professional services.
• Track long-lead items, deliveries, site access, installation readiness and dependencies.
• Coordinate with OEMs and distributors on availability, licensing, support and technical resources.
• Identify resource constraints early and escalated where necessary.

Reporting & Governance

• Provide concise weekly and monthly reporting on:
• Project status and milestones
• Risks and major issues
• Budget and commercial position
• Change requests
• Customer actions and dependencies
• Technology-refresh or lifecycle risks
• Maintain decision logs, action trackers and governance records.
• Provide clear visibility of issues requiring management or customer intervention.

Technical Understanding

The Project Manager is not expected to design, configure or implement technical solutions. However, the candidate should have sufficient ICT knowledge to understand project dependencies, follow technical discussions, identify delivery risks and coordinate effectively with technical teams, OEMs and subcontractors.

A broad working understanding of the following areas is desirable:

• Enterprise infrastructure, including servers, storage, virtualisation, backup and disaster recovery.
• Networking and connectivity.
• Cybersecurity concepts and secure ICT environments.
• Enterprise applications and systems integration.
• Cloud and hybrid infrastructure.
• Technology upgrades, refresh and lifecycle management.

Detailed technical design and implementation will be handled by solution architects, engineers and specialist vendors.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Technology, Computer Science, Telecommunications or a related discipline.
• Minimum 8 years of ICT / technology experience, including at least 5 years managing technology projects.
• Proven experience managing medium-to-large ICT or systems-integration projects.
• Experience managing projects involving enterprise ICT infrastructure, applications or integrated technology environments.
• Experience managing implementations, upgrades, enhancements or technology-refresh initiatives.
• Experience coordinating multiple OEMs, system integrators, subcontractors and technology partners.
• Strong understanding of project scope, change control, vendor management and project financials.
• Strong stakeholder-management and communication skills.
• Excellent written and spoken English.
• Ability to obtain and maintain required security clearance and site-access approvals where applicable.

Strongly Preferred

• Experience working in high-availability or mission-critical ICT environments.
• Experience managing technology-refresh or infrastructure-modernisation programmes.
• Experience managing projects involving enterprise infrastructure, cybersecurity, applications or cloud environments.

Advantage

• Experience working with leading ICT OEMs and technology partners.
• Managed-services or ITIL environments.
• PMP, PRINCE2 or equivalent recognised project-management certification.
• UAE Government, Defence or Security project experience.
• Experience in secure, sovereign or restricted ICT environments.

Skills & Personal Attributes

• Structured, accountable and delivery-focused.
• Strong vendor and subcontractor management.
• Commercially aware.
• Able to manage competing priorities across multiple workstreams.
• Strong at identifying cross-project and cross-vendor dependencies.
• Able to communicate effectively with technical teams, customers and senior stakeholders.
• Calm and organised during critical project phases and major change windows.
• Disciplined in documentation, governance and management reporting.