Project Lead - Healthcare Sector

Mace; Warrington; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working options

Flexible working patterns

Job summary

Mace is seeking a Project Lead to act as the central point of contact for a Trust scheme, coordinating integration, assurance, and governance to enable compliant delivery.

You will coordinate between the Trust, Directorates and the wider programme, supporting decision making with scope, cost, risk data, and escalating issues early to ensure schemes meet DHSC objectives and patient outcomes.

Qualifications

• Degree-qualified in project management, construction, engineering or similar.
• Professional project management qualification (APM, PRINCE2 or equivalent).
• Proven experience on large, complex capital programmes or major infrastructure schemes.
• Strong governance, assurance and reporting knowledge in public-sector environments.
• Experience developing and assuring HMT Green Book–compliant business cases.

Responsibilities

• Act as the primary scheme‑level interface between the Trust, Executives, PMO, and wider programme functions.
• Attend and present at scheme, programme and assurance meetings as required.
• Support application of prevailing standards, policies and requirements at scheme level.
• Support delivery of agreed project outcomes while aligning with Trust and DHSC objectives for patient benefit.
• Maintain effective alliance and partnering relationships with stakeholders.
• Escalate issues, requirements, and resources to alliance management and partnering groups.
• Coordinate development and maintenance of the RADIO risk/issue/dependency registers.
• Identify emerging risks and cross-scheme dependencies and escalate as needed.
• Provide guidance to Trust teams on processes and assurance readiness.
• Coordinate lessons learned and feed back to programme management and relevant functions.

Skills

Stakeholder management

Governance knowledge

Communication to senior stakeholders

Risk management

Project coordination

Education

Degree in a relevant discipline

PRINCE2 or APM qualification

Tools

CSCS Card (White Card)

Job description

Description - External

Mace combines construction expertise with consultancy to unlock potential in every person or project and redefine the boundaries of ambition. Our values shape the way we consult and define the people we want to join us on our journey.

The Project Lead acts as the central point of contact and scheme level conduit for a Trust scheme, coordinating integration, assurance, and oversight activity to enable compliant, informed, and effective delivery.

The role provides single point coordination between the Trust, Directorates, and the wider programme, ensuring alignment to programme expectations, standards, and governance at scheme level. The Project Lead supports decision making by bringing together information on scope, programme, cost, risk and dependencies, and by identifying emerging issues early so they can be addressed through the appropriate governance, assurance, or delivery routes.

The Project Lead does not manage delivery or ultimately decide on requirements implementation, but enables delivery teams to succeed through structure, clarity, and proactive coordination.

You’ll Be Responsible For

• Acting as the primary scheme‑level interface between the Trust, Executives, PMO, Directorate Guardians, assurance teams DHSC and HM Treasury, and wider programme functions.
• Attending and presenting at scheme, programme and assurance meetings as required.
• Supporting the application of prevailing standards, policies and requirements at scheme level, working closely with Directorates.
• Supporting delivery of the agreed project outcomes and benefits while adhering to the strategic objectives defined by the Trust and DHSC for the benefit of current and future patients.
• Awareness and maintenance of an effective Alliance relationship and promotion of its benefits with members and stakeholders
• Appropriate and proactive escalation of issues, assistance requirements, and resourcing support to the alliance management office (AMO) as a remedy to schematic concerns.
• Awareness and maintenance of an effective Partnering Agreement relationship and promotion of its benefits with members and stakeholders. Including engaging in core group and wider core group meeting.
• Appropriate and proactive escalation of issues, assistance requirements and resourcing support to the partnering agreement core groups as a remedy to schematic concerns.
• Supporting the implementation of Trust and prevailing change control processes, coordinating information, impact assessments and documentation and present or support presentation of the change to approving committees e.g. Trust change committees.
• Where necessary use the Delivery Escalation Process, Delivery Clinics and other forums to brief management, committees and or Executives on matters requiring decisions or direction.
• Coordinating the development and maintenance of the scheme Risk, Assumption, Dependencies, Issues and Opportunity (RADIO) registers and proactively engage Trust and or risk management processes.
• Proactively identify emerging risks, issues and cross‑scheme dependencies, escalating as required (to Trust Programme Director and Wave Lead).
• Positively challenge information provided by Trusts, Boards, contractors and advisors to ensure robustness and transparency.
• Supporting Scheme Programme Directors and Wave Leads by providing clear, evidence‑based insights to inform governance decisions.
• Acting as focal point in the project, lead the coordination, interface and integration of the project team, including but not limited to Technical Services, Commercial and Contracts, Finance and Healthcare.
• Working collaboratively across the Trust, the ICB, the healthcare region, supporting a constructive, proportionate and enabling approach to scheme oversight.
• Working knowledge of the prevailing Cohort 2 Partnering Agreement and H2A Alliance Agreement that may be applicable to the scheme; including roles, accountabilities and collaborative behaviours within an alliance or partnering environment.
• Providing guidance and informal coaching to Trust teams on processes, expectations and assurance readiness.
• Coordinating lessons learned activity and feedback to functions to support continuous improvement.
• Supporting Trust and or lesson learned processes and provide feedback to the programme managers, design guardians and relevant Directorates or functions to improve project and service delivery.
• Reviewing, commenting and supporting the Trust to manage the quality and completeness of Scheme Prospectuses, addressing delivery, sequencing, and site‑specific risks to support timely collaborative allocation.
• Managing the Trust’s adoption of the healthcare H2.0 design framework and the industrialisation strategy of advocating the continued application and compliance with the H2.0 principles.
• Facilitating the planning, coordination and implementation of healthcare’s operational readiness activities that implement clinical services, deploy clinical staff and hospital digitised systems.
• Reporting on operational readiness of the schemes within reporting processes.

You’ll Need To Have

• Degree‑qualified in a relevant discipline (e.g. Project Management, Construction, Engineering, Commercial, Master Planning or similar).
• Professional project management qualification and/or membership (e.g. APM, PRINCE2 or equivalent).
• Proven experience working on large, complex capital programmes or major infrastructure schemes.
• Strong understanding of programme governance, assurance and reporting within regulated public‑sector environments.
• Experience supporting the development and assurance of HMT Green Book‑compliant business cases.
• Ability to synthesise, challenge and communicate complex information clearly to senior stakeholders.
• Strong stakeholder management skills across multi‑organisational environments.
• Confidence in providing clear, evidence‑based challenge to senior stakeholders while maintaining trusted relationships.
• Knowledge of risk management processes, programme controls and change management frameworks.
• Understanding of healthcare projects or comparable public‑sector capital delivery environments.
• Hold a relevant CSCS card, at Project Lead level this is assumed to be a White Card for either academically qualified persons or professionally qualified persons.

Our values

Safety first - Going home safe and well: We champion a safe, diverse and inclusive working environment, understanding the importance of wellbeing in every team.

Client focus - Deliver on our promise: We own the quality of deliverables, strategic outcomes and build long term relationships with our clients.

Integrity - Always do the right thing: We influence positive outcomes within our industry, while always aligning with our compliance obligations.

Create opportunity - For our people to excel: We champion a continuous improvement culture throughout all activities, inspiring our people and teams to develop.

Mace is an inclusive employer and welcomes interest from a diverse range of candidates. Even if you feel you do not fulfil all the criteria, please apply as you may still be the best candidate for this role or another role within our organisation.

We are also open to discussing part time, flexible, and hybrid working options if suitable with-in the role.