About the job

Job summary

This position is based nationally

Job description

We encourage applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that represents the wider society that we serve. We pride ourselves on being an employer of choice. We champion diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and a sense of belonging. To find out more about how we do this visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity.

Closing Date: 29 February 2024

Interviews: From 13 March 2024 

Grade: 7

(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer) 

Salary: London: £58,847 - £66,670; National: £54,358 - £61,585 

Working pattern: Full-time, part-time, flexible working 

Contract Type: Permanent 

Vacancy number: 84520 

*We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your local office. Office locations can be found ON THIS MAP

The Role

We’re recruiting for a Senior Project Manager here at Justice Digital, to be part of our warm and collaborative Project Delivery team. 

The Justice Digital Project Delivery is responsible for the delivery of technology projects. It has responsibility, for example, of infrastructure across 900+ sites. 

We are recruiting for a Senior Project Manager to take full responsibility for the definition, documentation and satisfactory completion of a single major project or a number of smaller initiatives.  

Senior Project Managers ensure teams have the right environment to deliver the vision, products and services, iteratively and ensure the team collaborates, communicates and focuses on what is most important. They work at the heart of teams to provide direction within a project, service or programme. They are accountable for building, motivating, supporting and facilitating teams as well as removing obstacles and blockers that get in their way. They challenge approaches inside and outside of the team they are working with and facilitate a focus on the outcome. 

Senior Project Managers proactively manage dependencies, identify and manage priorities, overcome obstacles and get the best value against constraints managing risks, budgets and people. They also assess and evaluate the business readiness for change and manage all aspects of the governance of projects ensuring continued integrity and coherence is maintained and are responsible for working proactively, effectively and collaboratively with a number of external supplier organisations. 

To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025 

Key Responsibilities:

The Senior Project Manager takes responsibility for the definition, documentation and safe execution of a single major project or several smaller initiatives, actively participating in all phases of the project and identifies, assesses and manages risks to its success.

• Waterfall, Agile and Lean Practices - Identify and compare the best processes or delivery methods to use and recognise when something does not work and encourage a mindset of experimentation. You will adapt and reflect, are resilient and have the ability to see outside of the process.

Use a blended approach depending on the context, measure and evaluate outcomes and help teams to manage and visualise outcomes.

• Change Management: identify and be able to work with Change Management professionals to implement business change.
• Communicating between the technical and non-technical - Listen to the needs of the technical and business stakeholders and interpret between them. Have the ability to manage stakeholders’ expectations and be flexible, with capable proactive and reactive communication skills, facilitating difficult discussions within the team or with diverse senior stakeholders.
• Maintaining delivery momentum - Facilitate the delivery flow of a team, managing the pace and tempo and actively addressing internal and external risks, issues and dependencies including where ownership exists outside the team.
• Making the process work - Identify and challenge organisational processes of increasing complexity and those processes that are unnecessarily complicated. Able to add value and coach the organisation to inspect and adapt processes. Guide teams and the business through the implementation of a new process.
• Planning - Understand the environment and prioritise the most important or highest value tasks. Able to use data to inform planning and manage complex internal and external dependencies. Provide delivery confidence. Ability to remove blockers or impediments that affect the plan and develop a plan for difficult situations. Ensure teams plan appropriately for their capacity.
• Team dynamics and collaboration – Empower and bring people together to form a motivated team. Help create the right environment for a team to work in, recognise and deal with issues and facilitate the best team makeup depending on the situation.
• Commercial management - Act as the point of contact for contracted suppliers. Understand appropriate internal contacts and processes within a government department. Understand how and when third parties should be brought into Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) projects. Experience of managing a procurement as part of a project either as a G Cloud offering or meeting OJEU regulations.
• Financial management - Balance cost versus value. Consider the impact of user needs. Report on financial delivery. Monitor cost and budget and escalate issues.
• Business Cases – Develop and manage government Business Cases with input from specialists. Manage and deliver the Business Case process including through to delivery of an appropriate Benefits Realisation Strategy.
• Governance & Assurance – Develop, support, and manage appropriate governance, assurance and decision making at all points through a project lifecycle.
• Lifecycle perspective - Recognise when to move from one stage of a project lifecycle to another. Ensure the team is working towards the appropriate service standards for the relevant phase. Manage the delivery projects or services at different phases. 

If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply! 

Benefits

• 37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours.
• We are committed to nurturing our staff and provide lots of training and development opportunities with learning platforms such as: Linux Academy, O’Reilly, Pluralsight, Microsoft Learning, Civil Service Learning, GDS Academy, etc.
• 10% dedicated time to learning and development with a budget of £1000 a year per person
• Generous civil service pension based on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 26-30% depending on salary.
• 25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and 1 privilege day usually taken around the Kings’ birthday. 5 additional days of leave once you have reached 5 years of service.
• Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!
• Wellbeing support including access to the Calm app.
• Nurturing professional and interpersonal networks including those for Carers & Childcare, Gender Equality, PROUD and SPIRIT
• Bike loans up to £2500 and secure bike parking (subject to availability and location)
• Season ticket loans, childcare vouchers and eye-care vouchers.
• 5 days volunteering paid leave.
• Free membership to BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT.
• Some offices may have a subsidised onsite Gym. 

Person Specification 

Essential 

• Experience working in digital, waterfall and hybrid methodologies and able to recognise and influence the correct methodologies for delivery
• Taking ownership of problems and show initiative in aligning the necessary resources to bring about a successful outcome for the business.
• You’ll understand user needs, based upon evidence and engage in meaningful interactions and relationship, to translate user stories and propose design approaches or services to meet these needs.
• Have a good understanding and experience of working in complex business/operational environments, and be able to demonstrate for example the activities, structures, and position in the organisation of the teams or departments for which services are provided.
• You’ll demonstrate a passion for digital and technology and how it can be used to enable new ways of working, increase efficiencies and productivity and reduce costs. Staying abreast of new and emerging tools and technologies that would allow MoJ to deliver its priorities
• Experience of working to relevant Project Management certification or equivalent levels and experience of using recognised methodologies and tools to develop and deliver technology projects and maintaining financial controls. 

Willingness to be assessed against  the requirements for SC clearance 

We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate based on culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor. 

Our values are Purpose, Humanity Openness and Together. Find out more here about how we celebrate diversity and an inclusive culture in our workplace. 

Person specification

Please refer to attached Job Description

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £54,358, Ministry of Justice contributes £15,165 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

How to Apply 

Candidates must submit a CV and may also submit an optional Cover Letter, which describes how you meet the requirements set out in the Person Specification above. 

In Justice Digital, we recruit using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks. We will assess your Experience, Technical Skills and the following Behaviours during the assessment process: 

• Changing & Improving
• Leadership
• Making Effective Decisions
• Seeing the Bigger Picture
• Working Together 

A diverse panel will review your application against the Person Specification above. 

Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a 1-hour panel interview held via video conference. 

Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for but demonstrate the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and offer you the position without needing a further application. 

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, from which further appointments may be made.

Terms & Conditions

Please review our Terms & Conditions which set out how we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact recruitment@digital.justice.gov.uk

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.