About the job

Job summary

Have you considered a Civil Service career and the unparalleled opportunities it has to offer in a variety of significant roles, with the potential to change the nation and people’s lives for the better? The Army’s Programmes Directorate brings together our key change programmes to ensure they are delivered to performance, cost and time. We are committed to Project, Programme & Portfolio Management (P3M) and delivery. From every item of basic equipment to the most ground-breaking technology imaginable, every new project brings outstanding possibilities and challenges, and we’ll ensure you’re equipped to succeed, with extensive training and development opportunities. The Directorate consists of Civil Servants, military colleagues and contractors working closely to deliver the Army’s Modernisation Agenda. This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.  Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working.  This is a non-contractual arrangement where all office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to capacity and any required workplace adjustments. Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD office, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements.

Job description

This is an exciting time to join the Army Programmes directorate as we seek to employ around 20 professionals to enhance our Project Delivery teams.  We're looking for organised, motivated and dynamic individuals to support the delivery of our pivotal Programmes. You’ll be working alongside experienced colleagues making a significant contribution to Defence and the Nation.

In return, we offer the opportunity to further professionalise your experience through relevant training and/or accreditation.

This campaign has been designed to attract candidates who hold Portfolio, Programme & Project Management (P3M) experience, and are looking to further develop their skills and competence in this area. If you meet the following criteria, we would like to hear from you;

• Experience of working in a Project/Programme team, and have knowledge of project management practices, methodologies, tools, and techniques including planning, risk management, governance, frameworks, stakeholder management, change control and assurance.
• Role model behaviour; inspiring and leading team members effectively.
• Ability to clearly communicate messages to colleagues and stakeholders, overcoming barriers and taking into consideration diversity of interest.
• Establish and develop productive relationships, bringing people together to benefit the project.
• Ability to interpret and analyse data to inform decision making.
• Application of new ideas and ways of working, encourage and support innovations from others and follow ideas through to implementation.
• Well organised and able to adapt to changing circumstances and adversity whilst remaining calm, reassuring others, and maintaining performance.
• Problem-solver, adapting the best solutions and present findings convincingly.

Person specification

The roles within this campaign provide input to our most critical Programmes, some of the main responsibilities include;

Project Manager

• Lead the project and the associated team on a day-to-day basis.
• Responsible for driving and overseeing the delivery of the project, ensuring that objectives are clearly defined and achieved within the agreed time, cost and quality constraints.
• Pivotal in project governance and working with stakeholders, to ensure the agreed project outputs are delivered to enable benefits to be realised.

Planning

• Work with stakeholders to ensure all aspects of the project are defined.
• Provide clarity on key milestones to define what, when and how activities will be organised to ensure the outcomes of a project can be achieved, with the resources available.
• Lead on all planning aspects, including the development, updating and monitoring of plans and schedules.
• Identify tasks, activities, interdependencies and outputs, working with the wider team to track and monitor progress against the plan throughout the life of the project.

Governance & Reporting

• Manage and control governance activities to enable effective management and decision-making.
• Ensure timely, consistent, and accurate data collection, analysis and reporting on progress and delivery confidence.

Risk, Assurance, Issues, Dependencies, Opportunities (RAIDO)

• Proactively manage risks and issues facing the Project/Programme by co-ordinating the consistent identification, documentation, monitoring and reporting of risks and issues.
• Support the relevant risk or issue owners to identify and develop appropriate mitigation plans and escalate to the next level of management where appropriate.

Benefits

• Proactively identify, quantify, and track the realisation of benefits used to justify investment in the Project/Programme.
• Ensure that a ‘fit for purpose’ approach to benefits measurement and realisation is used to provide assurance that the benefits identified can be achieved.

Programme / Project Support Officer

• Responsible for covering a diverse range of activities to support the delivery of the Project/Programme objectives.
• Enable the smooth running of the Project/Programme by supporting and leading the team through the operation of project management processes, and the co-ordination of business management actions and activities on their behalf.

Portfolio Analyst

• Responsible for the oversight of a collection of Programmes/Projects that contribute to the delivery of departmental or business area objectives.
• Focus primarily on providing insight, information and support that strengthens portfolio governance to enable prioritisation decisions and effective allocation of resources across the portfolio.
• Ensure optimal delivery of departmental/business strategic objectives in line with government priorities through the analysis of a range of information sources and engagement with programme and project stakeholders and converting this into informed insights using appropriate reporting and visualisation methods.

 

Want to know more? We encourage you to join our Q&A Dial-in where you can learn more about the roles on offer and ask any questions you may have.

Microsoft Teams meeting:

Friday 09 February - 12:30-13:30

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Meeting ID: 354 721 559 649
Passcode: T8p2yr

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Successful candidates are required to hold at least one of the following qualifications listed below:

• APM Project Management Qualification (PMQ)
• Prince 2 Practitioner
• Agile Project Management Practitioner
• Management of Portfolios (MOP)
• Management of Successful Programmes (MSP)
• Or equivalent qualifications

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £43,080, Ministry of Defence contributes £11,631 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

At application you will be assessed against the following:

Experience:

• Full Qualification Details
• Job History (CV)
• Personal Statement:

In no more than 1000 words, please demonstrate the following Essential criteria within your Personal Statement:

• Experience of working in a small to moderate Project/Programme team, and have knowledge of project management practices, methodologies, tools, and techniques to contribute to successful project delivery including planning, scheduling, risk management, governance, frameworks, stakeholder management, change control and assurance.
• Ability to inspire and lead team members effectively. You will have the ability to set clear direction and able to motivate others to work towards a common goal.
• Excellent communication skills: can clearly communicate messages to colleagues and stakeholders, whilst overcoming barriers, and taking into consideration diversity of interest.
• Strong stakeholder management skills: ability to establish and develop productive relationships with internal and external stakeholders, bringing people together to benefit the project.
• Good organisational skills supported by robust planning and prioritisation. Can adapt to changing circumstances and adverse situations whilst remaining calm, reassuring others, and maintaining performance.

At interview you will be assessed against the above along with the following:

Behaviours:

• Changing and Improving
• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing

Technical:

You will be asked to provide working-level evidence of understanding and/or experience in the following competencies as listed in the Project Delivery Capability Framework;

• 4: Planning
• 8: Risk & Issue management
• 11: Governance

 

Application sifting will take place one week following the closure of the advert.

A minimum of 2 full working days’ notice will be provided for interviews.

We endeavour to remain within this time-frame, however it may be subject to change.

 Link to PDCF: Project Delivery Capability Framework

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBSCivPers-Resourcingteam3@mod.gov.uk . 

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical.  

The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn. 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.