Innovation Project Manager

United Utilities; Warrington; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 80,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

26 days annual leave

Pension plan

Healthcare

Hybrid working

Learning & development

PMQ support

Leadership coaching

Career development opportunities

Job summary

United Utilities is seeking a forward‑thinking Project Manager for its Innovation team to drive breakthrough projects that deliver measurable benefits. You will oversee full lifecycle planning, execution and reporting, balancing scope, time and budget while managing risks and stakeholders across multiple disciplines.

The role emphasizes agile delivery, collaboration beyond UU and external partners, and a strong commitment to sustainability and transformative engineering.

Qualifications

• Degree qualified with experience in technical or engineering environments.
• Experience managing and delivering projects within a technical/engineering setting.
• APM PMQ (or equivalent) qualification in progress or obtained.
• Strong coordination, reporting and governance capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Lead end‑to‑end project lifecycle from planning to closure.
• Manage risks, finances and stakeholder expectations across projects.
• Coordinate multi‑disciplinary teams and external partners.
• Report progress to regulators and senior leaders.
• Apply agile and change management practices to projects.

Skills

Project management

Stakeholder management

Agile

Communication

Budget management

Education

Degree qualified

APM PMQ or equivalent

Job description

Competitive Salary + Outstanding Benefits

Location: Lingley Mere (UU), Lingley Green Avenue, Great Sankey, Warrington, WA5 3LP

Ready to Lead Innovation That Matters?

At United Utilities, we're not just delivering water we're helping to create a more prosperous, greener and healthier North West. As one of the UK's leading FTSE 100 organisations, we're investing in the future through innovation, sustainability and transformational engineering projects that deliver real benefits for our customers, communities and the environment.

We are expanding our award‑winning Innovation team at United Utilities, bringing together innovation, decarbonisation, and standardisation to drive step‑change improvements in cost and carbon performance mainly focused on our c.£7bn capital programme. Our team explores innovations that deliver value and drives the deployment these solutions at scale to unlock outperformance against our ambitious targets.

We're looking for an ambitious and forward‑thinking Project Manager to join our Innovation Team. This is a unique opportunity for an experienced Project Manager who thrives on turning great ideas into reality, driving industry‑leading innovation and delivering projects that make a measurable difference.

If you're passionate about sustainability, emerging technologies, engineering excellence and continuous improvement, this could be the career‑defining role you've been waiting for.

The Opportunity

As Project Manager – Innovation, you’ll work predominantly with the Innovation & Transformation team, where you will be responsible for the full project lifecycle planning, execution, monitoring, control and closure. Your core focus will be ensuring projects are delivered on time, within scope and within budget, while effectively managing risks, resources and stakeholder expectations.

You'll be at the forefront of driving innovation, championing new ways of working and ensuring successful inclusion of solutions across our business.

This role offers the perfect blend of strategic thinking, stakeholder engagement and hands‑on project leadership.

What You'll Be Doing

• To manage a small number of high profile breakthrough innovation projects to time, cost and quality expectations and to make sure that the right people hear about these projects and ideas so that they can be adopted faster
• To ensure UU provides adequate support to other Innovation projects (led by other water companies)
• Breakthrough ideas represent significant disruption to today’s ways of working; they need “different thinking” and an agile approach to project management and team leadership
• These projects will need regular reporting to Ofwat and other key organisations – and results shared widely across the water sector
• Mobilisation of complex, early stage Innovation projects
• Project management meeting high time, cost and quality priority
• Maintain relationships across the project teams e.g. innovators internally and externally including Regulators and grant bodies
• Project scale Annual: range from £5k to £10m
• Establish commercial contracts [trials / early roll‑outs / long term agreements for full roll‑out]
• Creating project teams from across water companies and innovators - supporting the team to deliver on agreed project scope and to work to deadlines
• Manage projects to best practice using agile techniques and appropriate change management
• Only some projects are led by UU, some are led by external parties such as other water companies or academia or suppliers; this relies on high strengths to “work through others”
• Produce regular reports showing performance vs trial criteria– highlighting key risks and opportunities, monitoring trends and celebrating successes;
• Convince auditors, external funding teams and Regulators that UU is managing projects wellLead and coordinate multi-disciplinary teams across the business as a means of realising benefits through standardisation.
• Build strong relationships with senior stakeholders and business leaders.

About You

We're looking for someone who combines strong project management expertise with a genuine passion for innovation and engineering excellence.

• Degree Qualified.
• Demonstrable experience managing and delivering projects within a technical or engineering environment
• Qualified, or actively working towards, APM PMQ (or equivalent)
• Strong project co‑ordination, project management and reporting experience
• Experience of project financial management; Project financial / budget experience – e.g. project spend forecasting
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Relationship building and focus on delivery – especially working through others to deliver
• Demonstrable experience in workload prioritisation
• Ability to project manage sensitive projects and work through others to deliver
• Full UK/EU driving licence

We'd Love to see

• Strong awareness of UU Innovation, including relevant processes, governance and ways of working, with a demonstrable innovation mindset.
• Relevant postgraduate qualification, such as an MSc in Project Management, or equivalent knowledge, skills and practical experience.
• Self‑starting and proactive mindset, with the ability to identify opportunities, risks and appropriate interventions in projects that are often immature, ambiguous or operating with low levels of certainty.
• Strong understanding and application of project and portfolio management best practice, including agile and adaptive delivery techniques.
• Demonstrable ability to project manage complex or sensitive projects, working through and influencing others to achieve successful outcomes.
• Experience of managing and coordinating individual projects and wider portfolios, balancing competing priorities, dependencies and resources.
• Experience in the development, evaluation and interpretation of budgets and business cases, supporting robust investment and delivery decisions.
• Proven ability to work across departments and disciplines, with the flexibility to operate effectively outside a core technical specialism.
• Strong and resilient stakeholder management and influencing skills, including the confidence and credibility to engage at senior levels.
• A natural collaborator, comfortable working across organisational boundaries and within a matrix structure.
• Awareness and/or practical experience of business change, transformation, implementation and adoption, recognising that innovation requires successful transition into business‑as‑usual.
• Technologically open‑minded and digitally capable, with the confidence to adopt new ways of working, tools and supporting software.

What You'll Get

• 26 days annual leave, increasing to 30 days after four years, plus bank holidays
• Competitive pension scheme with up to 14% employer contribution (21% combined value)
• Performance‑related bonus of up to 10.5%
• Comprehensive company‑funded healthcare plan
• Flexible and hybrid working arrangements
• Industry‑leading learning and development opportunities
• APM PMQ support and professional accreditation pathways
• Leadership coaching, mentoring and career development programmes
• The opportunity to work on projects that positively impact communities and the environment

Be Part of Something Bigger

At United Utilities, innovation isn't a buzzword it's how we solve some of the region's biggest environmental and infrastructure challenges.

If you're excited by the opportunity to lead ambitious projects, shape the future of sustainable engineering and make a genuine difference to millions of customers across the North West, we'd love to hear from you.