Project Manager

Salary: £44,886 per annum. Based in Sidmouth, Devon – an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

About the role

The Donkey Sanctuary is an international animal welfare organisation, offering care and protection to donkeys worldwide. Our vision is a world where every donkey has a good quality of life, and our mission is to improve the lives of donkeys every day. We will achieve this by transforming the lives of donkeys in need worldwide through greater understanding, collaboration, and support, and by promoting lasting, mutually life-enhancing relationships.

We have an excellent opportunity for a Project Manager with experience in successful delivery of systems implementations to join our busy Business Strategy & Programmes Team. As Project Manager, you will oversee and lead the planning, communication, implementation, and delivery of projects of significant strategic benefit to the charity, involving operational teams and management at all levels. These projects sit within a global Technology Transformation Programme of work reporting to the Senior PM.

Responsibilities

• Taking an active part in designing, adapting, and delivering plans necessary to meet the aims and objectives of each project.
• Leading in implementation management and monitoring/evaluation of delivered projects through relevant phases of an end-to-end project lifecycle.
• Managing, escalating, and communicating project progress and issues to senior management in relevant project/programme meetings.
• Providing Project Management expertise to Project sponsor(s) and Senior Project Manager to ensure projects are delivered on time, to quality, and within agreed budget for achievement of benefits realisation.
• Active management of related risk, issue, decision, action, and benefits tracking tools to regularly report on progress and areas of escalation.
• Working closely with the Change Manager and wider project team to ensure stakeholders have sufficient engagement and support opportunities to enable adoption success.
• Actively encouraging the generation of new ideas and opportunities across the organisation, gathering lessons learned, to improve structures, processes, and adoption of different ways of working.

Requirements

• Holder of a recognised formal project management qualification (APM/Prince2/PMD Pro or equivalent).
• Proven success in the management and delivery of multiple complex, concurrent projects in a busy environment with varying priorities, budgets, and time frames.
• Evidence of delivering successful system implementation projects through a typical project lifecycle, ideally with experience of organisation-wide ERP implementations.
• Highly developed written and verbal communication skills.
• Demonstrable experience of establishing, building, and maintaining successful stakeholder relationships.
• Able to lead and motivate project teams.
• Demonstrable evidence of creating and implementing new processes.
• A good understanding of the principles of good change management associated with large-scale system implementations.

Schedule

• Full-time, 2-year fixed-term contract starting as soon as possible.
• 35 hours per week, 08:30–16:30, Monday–Friday.
• Hybrid working position, combining onsite and home working. The working pattern will be agreed between the line manager and post-holder, with onsite attendance currently anticipated to be one day per week, but could be more depending on project activities.

Benefits

• Competitive pension.
• Life assurance.
• 31 days holiday (including Bank holidays), rising to 34 with each full year of service.
• Wellbeing team.
• Recorded Pilates and Yoga classes.
• Long service awards.
• Healthshield plan – reimbursement of some medical expenses up to specified limits per membership.
• Offers, discounts, and cashback on shopping, travel, and entertainment from participating outlets.
• Access to a 24/7 GP and counselling service.
• Free parking.
• Subsidised restaurant and shop.