About the job

Job summary

National: £38,724 - £44,393

Inner : £42,716 - £48,068

As the UCD Project Manager you will lead on the day to day running and oversight of the UCD business plan which comprises of a number projects of low to moderate complexity. These are medium scale initiatives which aim to embed a culture of user-centredness across UKHSA, improve UCD team performance and support UKHSA to deliver service improvements. 

You will be responsible for overseeing the delivery of the divisions business plan, ensuring that the objectives are clearly defined and achieved within the agreed time, cost, and quality constraints. You will have a key role in project governance and will work with stakeholders to ensure the agreed project outputs are delivered to enable benefit realisation.

This role is aligned to the Project Delivery Capability Framework (PDCF) career pathway Project Manager 2.

You can find more information about the PDCF on the gov.uk homepage (search "Project Delivery Capability Framework").

Introduction

At UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) our mission is to prepare for, prevent and respond to infectious diseases and environmental hazards to keep all our communities safe, to save lives and protect livelihoods.  We are a trusted source of advice to government and to the public, focusing on reducing inequalities in the way different communities experience and are impacted by threats to health. 

This is an exciting opportunity to join UKHSA as a Project Manager within the User-Centred Design (UCD) team. 

About the team

The UCD team draws together experts in design and delivery with a shared mission to create an organisation that puts an understanding of users, their needs, and experiences at the heart of policy making, and service and product design and delivery, to improve organisational performance.

To achieve our mission, the UCD team will:

• Influence– Advocate for user-centredness. Building awareness and understanding of UCD principles and practices across UKHSA, actively influencing decision makers to apply UCD standards and practices to policy making and service and product design and delivery. 
• Enable – Grow the UCD profession and give all staff the tools they need to embody user-centricity; providing a place for expert UCD capability to flourish, and the tools, guidance and frameworks needed to enable all staff to build UCD knowledge and skills.
• Deliver– Deploy our expert capability to help the organisation to solve problems and improve products and services by bring a problem-focused user-centric approach to transformation initiatives.

The UCD team work collaboratively with teams across the agency to help shape product and service design, improve public health outcomes and address health equalities. Our delivery squads take on a varied portfolio of work, with much of our input being focused on the discovery and alpha phase of design and play an important role in ensuring user needs are central to the development and improvement of services across UKHSA.

As Project Manager you will be joining a team of 26 UCD, delivery and project management professionals to support the delivery of these ambitious goals.  Working as part of a multi-disciplinary team, you will support the UCD team to deliver against its business plan and drive lasting and transformative change for our users; supporting UKHSA in its objective to become a high performing organisation.

Job description

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Manage the day to day running of the business plan and associated project(s).
2. Provide agile project management leadership to support the team to deliver the agreed outcomes within time, cost, and quality constraints.
3. Build project plans/roadmaps and apply appropriate delivery methodology, setting project controls and track and report against milestones.
4. Co-ordinate the development of the business plan and any necessary business cases.
5. Monitor and track team spend, ensuring it is within budget.
6. Support management of resources particularly in evaluating the impact of new demand, establishing practices which enable the team to capture and accurate record of all demand enabling the team to create a business case for growth.
7. Identify benefits, ensuring these are understood, measured, tracked, and owned; monitoring the longer-term delivery of benefits against the UCD team goals and objectives.
8. Develop effective relationships with key stakeholders, particularly the National Operations Programme Management Office.
9. Identify and monitor business plan and project risks, issues and dependencies, developing mitigating actions and escalation processes.
10. Provide the necessary reports to support effective governance and decision making at a team, directorate and group level.
11. Support business plan and project assurance, audit, and gateway reviews.
12. Set up effective change management processes, including documenting agreed changes to the roadmap and project deliverables.
13. Promote individual and team performance, seek appropriate guidance and coaching from the project community.
14. Be an active member of the UKHSA Project Delivery Profession Community.

Please refer to the Job Description for a full list of Roles and Responsibilities.

The duties/responsibilities listed above describe the post as it is at present and is not intended to be exhaustive. The Job holder is expected to accept reasonable alterations and additional tasks of a similar level that may be necessary.

Location

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) offers remote and hybrid working – this means that whilst the role can be based in one of our 4 offices in Birmingham, Leeds, London – Canary Wharf or Liverpool, there will be opportunities to work from home or remote working. The number of days in the office will be agreed on an individual basis by your line manager.

You will be asked to express a location preference during the application process.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked from within the UK and not overseas. Relocation expenses are not available

Person specification

It is important through your application and Statement of Suitability of 750 words that you give evidence and examples of proven experience of each of the following criteria:

Essential criteria

• Experience of working in a large or medium complexity project team or work stream lead for a small low complex project with working knowledge of project delivery methodologies and frameworks.
• Working knowledge of planning, scheduling, budget management, resource management, risk, issue and dependency management and quality management in a project or programme environment or appropriate skills that have been gathered in a non-project environment.
• Working knowledge of governance, assurance, requirements management and change control in a project or programme environment or appropriate skills that have been gathered in a non-project environment.
• Awareness of business planning and business case development, commercial and procurement processes, and asset allocation.
• Ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment with multiple tasks.
• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to develop effective relationships with a wide range of stakeholders, collaborating across boundaries with the ability to influence, challenge effectively and gain support for project roadmaps and ways of working.
• Strong capability in using Microsoft Office applications, specifically Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Desirable

• Understanding of best practices in agile project management and how to embed them into an agile workflow and influence project roadmaps to deliver timely outputs.
• Knowledge of agile ways of working and agile project management, and experience of working with product managers and UCD professionals on service design and/or improvement.
• Knowledge and experience of Project Management methodology supported by professional qualifications such as:
  • APM Project Management Qualification
  • PRINCE 2 Practitioner
  • Agile Project Management Practitioner
  • PMI Project Management Professional

Benefits

For more information on the UKHSA please visit: UK Health Security Agency - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Benefits

There are many benefits of working at UKHSA, including:

• flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to consider work part-time or condensed hours
• a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
• 26 days annual leave allowance increasing to 32 days after a 10-year service.
• an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• paid volunteering leave (5 special leave days per year)
• a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• death in service benefits
• cycle to work scheme and facilities
• access to an employee discounts schemes
• 5 learning days per year
• access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

UKHSA offers hybrid working for all employees. This means that everyone does some working from home and also spends some time in an office. You’ll agree to your hybrid working arrangement with your line manager in line with your preferences and business needs.

Any move to UKHSA from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Things you need to know

Selection process details

STAGE 1 - APPLICATION & SIFT: 

You will be required to complete an application form and a statement of suitability. Your Statement of Suitability should outline your skills, experience, and achievements, providing evidence of your suitability for the role, against the essential criteria (outlined in the person specification section). Your Statement of Suitability must not exceed 750 words.

Important tip - please ensure that your cover letter includes how you meet the skills and experience listed in the “person specification” section above.

You will also be asked to provide information within the ‘Employer/ Activity history’ section of the application form. This is equivalent to the information you would provide on a CV, setting out your career history. The sift selection panel will only consider relevant career history information from the last 5 years.

If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to an interview.

STAGE 2 – INTERVIEW:

This stage will involve a 50 minute video interview. We will assess your experience against the priority Project Delivery skills and the three Behaviours set out below.

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:

• Working Together
• Communicating and Influencing
• Changing and Improving

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Project Delivery Capability Framework for the Project Manager role:

• Planning
• Governance
• Business change and implementation

Candidates should expect questions on these skills during the interview.

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability status.

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

Expected Timeline: 

Advert close: 23:55hrs on 08/01/2023– unfortunately, late applications will not be considered. Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Interviews: TBC

Please note these dates could be subject to change. 

Eligibility Criteria

Open to all external applicants (anyone) from outside the Civil Service (including by definition internal applicants)

Nationality requirements

Appointments to roles within UKHSA will be made in accordance with the Civil Service nationality rules. These can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• Nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• Nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• Nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• Relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service
• Relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service
• Certain family members of the relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's Recruitment Principles.

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 welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment.

Security clearance level requirement

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is Enhanced Personnel Security Standard.

For posts on UKHSA Civil Service terms and conditions, new entrants to the Civil Service are expected to start on the minimum of the pay band. For existing Civil Servants and roles advertised across government, the rules of transfer apply, i.e., level transfers move on current salary or the pay range minimum, transfers on promotion move to new pay range minimum or receive a 10% increase. Either case is determined by whichever is the highest. 

Please Note

This role is to be appointed under Civil Service Terms & Conditions. Full details on the T&C’s are found https://www.ukhsa.reed.com/

Are you already a civil servant, or employed by a Civil Service Commission accredited public body? Please state home department on your application form.

Do you meet the nationality requirements for this post? https://www.ukhsa.reed.com/

The law requires that selection for appointment to the Civil Service is on merit on the basis of fair and open competition as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's Recruitment Principles. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact UKHSA Public Accountability Unit via email: Complaints1@ukhsa.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission: Visit the Civil Service Commission website.

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

Security

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.