Contract Project Manager

Contract Project Manager

Location: Maidenhead (minimum 3 days/week onsite, flexibility as required)
Duration: 6 months
Rate: 700- 800/day (Umbrella)
IR35: Not specified
Clearance: Due to the nature of the role, applicants must hold the sole British nationality and be eligible to obtain full SC Clearance

Overview

This contract role is based at a Cyber Centre of Excellence in Maidenhead, leading the end-to-end delivery of complex, multidisciplinary engineering projects across the full lifecycle (concept through delivery, acceptance, and close-out). You'll drive governance through stage gates and ensure schedule, cost and quality targets are achieved in a structured, regulated environment.

Responsibilities:

• Managing the end-to-end delivery of multidisciplinary engineering projects
• Driving successful outcomes across the full project lifecycle-from concept definition through delivery, acceptance, and close-out
• Providing strong leadership and governance, guiding projects through defined stage gates
• Ensuring projects meet schedule, cost, and quality objectives
• Collaborating closely with technical, commercial, and wider business stakeholders
• Bringing structure, pace, and assurance to the delivery of complex engineering projects

Skillset/experience required:

• Proven experience in project management within an engineering, or technology environment ideally
• An awareness and understanding of engineering principles and lifecycle models
• Experience with structured project management methodologies such as Waterfall, Scrum and Agile
• Excellent stakeholder management, both internal and external, with superb communication skills
• Experience in managing customer relationships, ideally within the Defence Sector
• Strong leadership and team coordination capabilities
• Proficiency in project management tools (e.g., MS Project, Jira)

Desirable:

• Formal certification (e.g., APM PMQ, PRINCE2, AgilePM)
• Defence/aerospace/highly regulated environment experience
• Delivery involving software, firmware and hardware integration
• Systems Engineering V-Lifecycle understanding
• Physical production and/or product through-life support experience