Project Manager

Ricardo plc; Adur; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A strategic engineering consulting firm is seeking an experienced Senior Project Manager to deliver New Product Introduction and consultancy projects. The successful candidate will manage project teams of experts, ensuring projects meet time, cost, quality, and customer satisfaction targets. This role involves strong leadership, risk management, and effective communication with stakeholders. The company offers a flexible work environment, a competitive benefits package, and encourages diversity and inclusion among employees.

Benefits

25 days’ annual leave

Competitive pension scheme

Life assurance

Qualifications

• Proven experience delivering complex engineering projects within an NPI or consultancy environment.
• Strong leadership and communication skills in a matrix organisation.
• A strong customer focus, with flexibility and resilience.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate the delivery of complex, multi-disciplinary engineering projects.
• Ensure compliance with project management processes and reporting.
• Manage expectations and resolve commercial or delivery issues professionally.

Skills

Leadership

Communication

Customer Focus

Project Management

Risk Management

Education

Engineering degree (or equivalent experience)

Tools

MS Project

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Senior Project Manager to lead the successful delivery of New Product Introduction (NPI) and consultancy projects within Ricardo's Performance Products business. Reporting to the Senior Programme Manager, you will be accountable for the end-to-end delivery of complex, multi-disciplinary projects from concept through development, validation, and transition to production. You will work closely with technical specialists, functional leaders, and customers to ensure projects are delivered safely, on time, within budget, and to the highest quality standards. This is an opportunity to manage project teams of industry-recognised experts, delivering world-class engineering solutions in a fast-paced, customer-focused environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate the end-to-end delivery of complex, multi-disciplinary engineering projects.
• Take full accountability for project performance against time, cost, quality, and customer satisfaction targets.
• Manage project scope, schedules, resources, and dependencies using best-practice tools and methodologies.
• Apply robust risk and issue management, ensuring timely identification, escalation, and resolution.
• Ensure compliance with Ricardo's project management processes and reporting requirements.
• Monitor performance and adjust plans based on data‑driven analysis.
• Act as the primary project‑level customer and stakeholder interface, building strong relationships at all levels.
• Manage expectations and resolve commercial or delivery issues professionally.
• Provide accurate reporting and escalation to the Senior Leadership Team.
• Control project spend against budgets and maintain accurate forecasts.
• Support preparation of customer proposals.
• Protect Ricardo's commercial interests through effective contract and change management.
• Ensure effective transition from development to production, confirming production readiness through validation, launch governance, cross‑functional alignment, and adherence to APQP and PPAP.
• Coach and mentor junior team members.
• Contribute to the Ricardo project management community and best‑practice development.

Qualifications

• Proven experience delivering complex engineering projects within an NPI or consultancy environment.
• Strong leadership and communication skills in a matrix organisation.
• Experience managing demanding customer relationships.
• A strong customer focus, with the flexibility and resilience required to succeed in a fast‑paced delivery environment.
• Understanding of technical and commercial project execution.
• High IT literacy including MS Project.
• Engineering degree (or equivalent experience).
• Familiarity with best‑practice PM methodologies; ideally APM qualified.
• A demonstrable commitment to continuous improvement.
• Comfortable with travel within the UK and internationally will be required.

About Ricardo

Ricardo, member of WSP, is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading‑edge and innovative cross‑sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

Culture & Inclusion

You will be warmly welcomed into our workplace where every voice matters. We are diverse thinkers and doers, coming together to create a culture of inclusion. We will support you to find your place.

We will encourage you to use your passion and expertise to make a positive impact through the projects you work on. Your knowledge and desire to bring about change will be invaluable in helping deliver innovative solutions that support communities across the globe in becoming safer and more sustainable.

Work Life Balance and Benefits

Work life balance: We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that is working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We’re happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core of our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential.

We want you to know how much you are valued. Your remuneration and benefits package will reflect that. You will receive a range of benefits which include support for your physical and mental health. Our core benefits include 25 days’ annual leave, plus 8 flexible bank holidays, a competitive company pension scheme, life assurance and professional subscriptions reimbursement. We also offer a wide range of flexible benefits to suit your lifestyle.

Equal Opportunity

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro‑actively with all our employees and to ensure an inclusive culture, we are a recognised as a ‘disability confident’ employer.