Senior PMO Lead: Governance, Planning & Portfolio

Railpen; Tees Valley; Hybrid; GBP 55,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Hybrid working

Pension scheme

Life Assurance 4x

Leave: 28 days

Job summary

Railpen is seeking an experienced PMO professional (12 month FTC) to lead governance, planning and portfolio controls across complex change initiatives. Based in London or Darlington with hybrid working, you’ll drive assurance, roadmaps and executive reporting while mentoring PMO colleagues.

You’ll combine strategic thinking with hands-on delivery, balancing governance with pragmatic, outcome-focused actions to strengthen capability and alignment with senior stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading PMO activities across complex programmes, portfolios or large-scale change environments.
• Strong knowledge of portfolio governance, independent assurance, integrated planning, reporting, risk management and delivery controls.

Responsibilities

• Leading PMO activities across complex projects, programmes and portfolios, ensuring effective governance, planning, reporting and control.
• Providing independent assurance and portfolio-level oversight of delivery performance, milestones, benefits, risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies and actions.
• Developing and maintaining integrated portfolio plans, delivery roadmaps and dependency-management processes to support strategic decision‑making.
• Producing executive reporting, dashboards and portfolio insights, analysing delivery performance, governance effectiveness, resource utilisation and delivery confidence to provide clear recommendations.
• Facilitating governance boards, steering committees and portfolio forums, ensuring decisions are well informed, documented, communicated and tracked.
• Conducting assurance reviews, governance health checks and delivery assessments to identify weaknesses and improve delivery outcomes and governance maturity.
• Horizon scanning across the change portfolio to identify emerging risks, dependencies and delivery pressures, enabling early intervention where required.
• Supporting prioritisation, capacity planning, investment decisions and financial governance in partnership with Portfolio Managers, Project Managers, Business Analysts and senior stakeholders.
• Driving the adoption and continuous improvement of PMO standards, frameworks, tools, reporting, governance and AI-enabled practices across the portfolio.
• Where appropriate, line‑managing, coaching and supporting PMO colleagues to strengthen capability, share good practice and build a collaborative professional community.

Skills

PMO leadership

Governance

Portfolio planning

Executive reporting

Job description

Railpen is seeking an experienced PMO professional (12 month FTC) to lead governance, planning and portfolio controls across complex change initiatives. Based in London or Darlington with hybrid working, you’ll drive assurance, roadmaps and executive reporting while mentoring PMO colleagues.

You’ll combine strategic thinking with hands-on delivery, balancing governance with pragmatic, outcome-focused actions to strengthen capability and alignment with senior stakeholders.