Programme Manager

About us:

ScreenSkills is the industry-led skills body for the screen industries - film, television (including children's, unscripted and high-end), VFX, animation and games. We are supporting the continued growth and future innovation across the whole of the UK by investing in the skilled and inclusive workforce who are critical to the global success of the screen sector.

We are supported by industry contributions to our Skills Funds – High-end TV, Film, Animation, Children’s TV, Unscripted TV – and Arts Council England to help people get into the industry and progress within it.

Role purpose:

ScreenSkills is delivering its 2025–2030 strategy to support a world‑leading, inclusive and agile screen workforce. This role provides organisational leadership across Strategic Projects, ensuring activity is sequenced, governed and resourced effectively.

Alongside Strategy programme oversight, the role will also help promote the basic foundations of a Project Management approach as needed, to strengthen delivery discipline, cross team coordination and portfolio level reporting across the organisation.

Key responsibilities:

Strategic Programme Management:

• Lead day‑to‑day planning, tracking, oversight, and reporting of a programme of Strategic Projects derived from to ScreenSkills’ Strategy and Annual Operating Plan activities.
• Maintain the organisation‑wide roadmap of Strategic Projects, including dependencies, milestones, delivery risks and mitigations.
• Ensure Strategic Projects deliver expected outcomes, integrating evaluation, workforce insight and stakeholder priorities.
• Delivery of Core Strategy Workstreams

Financial Reporting:

• Monitor actual expenditure and forecasted spend for Strategic Projects, aligned to the current budgets, working closely with senior colleagues in delivery and Finance teams.
• Work with the CEO, Finance Director and the COO to produce board updates and strategic performance summaries.
• Proposing and identifying risks and mitigations

Communications, Reporting & Engagement:

• Working effectively with all teams, particularly Finance.
• Scheduling regular update meetings with key colleagues to ensure that they are up-to-date with what’s happening across delivery activities and alerting project leads and other senior colleagues to any potential issues (e.g. in the areas of staffing, resourcing, timelines, delivery against targets or reporting)
• Provide delivery support for project groups as needed (including the cross‑sector stakeholder groups).
• Engage with all internal and external stakeholders as needed.

Functional Development:

• Support the COO in developing project planning, resource planning, project management and coordination methodologies used throughout the organisation.
• Contribute to organisation wide adoption of a suitable range of task/project management techniques to help standardise good practice.
• Develop consistent planning and reporting templates/formats for use across projects.
• Outline use cases for applicable tools, systems & processes etc

Essential skills and experiences:

Essential Experience

• Proven experience managing complex organisational Strategic Projects.
• Strong financial literacy and ability to manage budgets.
• Experience coordinating multi‑stakeholder delivery across sectors or agencies.

Essential Skills

• Excellent project and programme planning skills.
• Strong stakeholder engagement, relationship‑building and diplomacy.
• Ability to synthesise information and produce concise high‑quality reporting.
• Strong organisational, analytical and communication skills.

Desirable Experience

• Experience in skills, education, creative industries or public policy environments.
• Experience establishing or contributing to PMO operating procedures or delivery frameworks.

Attributes

• Highly organised, proactive and solutions-focused
• Skilled at navigating ambiguity and complexity
• Collaborative and committed to inclusive workforce development