Portfolio Manager

Balfour Beatty plc; Glasgow; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Smart working: up to 40% remote where/

Job summary

Balfour Beatty plc in the UK is seeking a Portfolio Manager to lead the IT project portfolio across the organisation, based in Glasgow or Newcastle, with responsibilities spanning strategy, delivery, and stakeholder engagement.

You will oversee budgets, governance, and risk management, driving value through effective prioritisation and collaboration with senior leaders and external partners.

Qualifications

• Strong leadership capabilities and ability to direct teams.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Strategic thinking with the ability to align delivery to business priorities.
• Governance, risk and dependency management across complex delivery environments.
• Experience with portfolio management or managing multiple programmes.
• Ability to influence and build credibility with senior stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead the strategic planning and execution of multiple IT projects across the organisation, ensuring alignment with business goals.
• Manage the IT project portfolio budget, optimising expenditure and resource allocation.
• Oversee the performance of project management teams, ensuring high standards of delivery and compliance.
• Facilitate effective stakeholder management strategies to enhance communication and project buy-in at all levels.
• Implement risk management processes to identify, assess, and mitigate risks throughout the project lifecycle.
• Make decisions on project priorities and resource allocations, providing leadership and direction.
• Foster continuous improvement by introducing innovations and efficiencies in project management practices.
• Ensure adherence to legal, regulatory, and company standards across all IT projects.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with external partners and suppliers to support project objectives.
• Champion the adoption of project management best practices and tools; lead portfolio governance processes, prioritisation and approvals.
• Monitor and report portfolio performance, benefits realisation, risks, dependencies and strategic outcomes.
• Balance portfolio demand against funding, resources and capacity.
• Provide data-driven recommendations to senior leaders regarding portfolio investment and delivery decisions.

Skills

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Strategic thinking

Communication

Governance

Risk management

Job description

About the role

Balfour Beatty is looking for a Portfolio Manager to join our growing team.

This role can be based from either Glasgow or Newcastle

This role is pivotal in ensuring the successful delivery and management of the IT project portfolio across Balfour Beatty. This role involves overseeing the implementation of IT projects in alignment with strategic business objectives, optimising project delivery, and ensuring effective resource utilisation and building strong relationships with senior stakeholders to drive engagement, informed decision-making, and organisational support for portfolio outcomes.

What you'll be doing

• Lead the strategic planning and execution of multiple IT projects across the organisation, ensuring alignment with business goals.
• Manage the IT project portfolio budget, optimising expenditure and resource allocation.
• Oversee the performance of project management teams, ensuring high standards of delivery and compliance.
• Facilitate effective stakeholder management strategies to enhance communication and project buy-in at all levels.
• Implement risk management processes to identify, assess, and mitigate risks throughout the project lifecycle.
• Make decisions on project priorities and resource allocations, providing leadership and direction.
• Foster an environment of continuous improvement by introducing innovations and efficiencies in project management practices.
• Ensure adherence to legal, regulatory, and company standards across all IT projects.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with external partners and suppliers to support project objectives.
• Champion the adoption of project management best practices and tools within the organisation. Lead portfolio governance processes, prioritisation and approvals.
• Monitor and report portfolio performance, benefits realisation, risks, dependencies and strategic outcomes.
• Balance portfolio demand against available funding, resources and organisational capacity.
• Provide data-driven recommendations to senior leaders regarding portfolio investment and delivery decisions

Who we're looking for

• Strong leadership capabilities are essential for managing and directing teams.
• Technical knowledge of IT infrastructure, software development life cycles, and current industry trends.
• Excellent skills in communication, stakeholder management, and strategic thinking.
• Adaptability to manage diverse teams and projects in a dynamic environment.
• Experience of portfolio management or managing multiple concurrent projects and programmes, with the ability to align delivery activity to business priorities
• Strong governance, risk and dependency management capabilities, with the ability to operate effectively across complex delivery environments.
• Demonstrable ability to build credibility, influence stakeholders and support informed decision‑making at all levels of the organisation.
• Experience establishing, applying or improving project, programme or portfolio management frameworks, controls, reporting and assurance practice

Why work for us

Day in, day out, our teams deliver some of the UK's most ambitious, exciting and meaningful projects; developing, building and maintaining the vital infrastructure that supports national economies and strengthens communities.

Why join us?

As if contributing to and supporting work that makes life better for millions wasn't rewarding enough, we offer a full range of benefits too. You'll have the freedom to shape the package that's right for you and your life. Here are some of our key benefits:

• Smart working, giving you more flexibility such as staggered start and finish times, with up to 40% remote working, where roles allow.
• 25 days paid annual leave (pro rata)
• Family friendly policies which include 28 weeks full pay for maternity/adoption leave and four weeks full pay for paternity/partners leave
• Pension, share incentive plan, volunteering leave, recognition schemes and much more...

About us

Balfour Beatty Group Enabling Functions are Legal, Finance, IT and Procurement, Communications, Health Safety and Environment, HR and Sustainability. Together, they support delivery of our Build to Last strategy whilst improving efficiencies and standardising our approach, systems and processes.

Diversity and inclusion

At Balfour Beatty we believe that diversity and inclusion are essential components of any successful, happy workplace. Through our Value Everyone Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and Action Plan, we are growing our diverse workforce and developing our inclusive culture where everyone is able to thrive and reach their full potential, regardless of their identity or background. To find out how we are making this a reality, visit www.balfourbeatty.com/diversityandinclusion. To help and support us with our desired commitment to create an inclusive culture we are members of WISE, enei, Business Disability Forum and the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers (AFBE). In 2020, we signed the Audeliss and Involve Open Letter to demonstrate our commitment to taking key long term and sustainable actions on Black Inclusion. Balfour Beatty is also a Gold Award holder in the Ministry of Defence 'Employer Recognition Scheme' and actively encourage applications from Armed Forces personnel, veterans and reservists.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we are committed to working with people who have disabilities and long-term health conditions to remove barriers for them in obtaining employment. We are also committed to offering applicants with a disability an interview if they meet the minimum requirements for the role. For more info, visit https://disabilityconfident.campaign.gov.uk/.

We are looking to continually improve our resourcing process and ensure that it is fair and inclusive for all. If you have any feedback on the process, please share this with us at [e-mail].