Job Description

Contract Project Manager

Location: Maidenhead (minimum 3 days/week onsite, flexibility as required)

Duration: 6 months

Rate: £700-£800/day (Umbrella)

IR35: Not specified

Clearance: Due to the nature of the role, applicants must hold the sole British nationality and be eligible to obtain full SC Clearance

Overview

This contract role is based at a Cyber Centre of Excellence in Maidenhead, leading the end-to-end delivery of complex, multidisciplinary engineering projects across the full lifecycle (concept through delivery, acceptance, and close-out). You'll drive governance through stage gates and ensure schedule, cost and quality targets are achieved in a structured, regulated environment.

Responsibilities:

Managing the end-to-end delivery of multidisciplinary engineering projects

Driving successful outcomes across the full project lifecycle-from concept definition through delivery, acceptance, and close-out

Providing strong leadership and governance, guiding projects through defined stage gates

Ensuring projects meet schedule, cost, and quality objectives

Collaborating closely with technical, commercial, and wider business stakeholders

Bringing structure, pace, and assurance to the delivery of complex engineering projects

Skillset/experience required:

Proven experience in project management within an engineering, or technology environment ideally

An awareness and understanding of engineering principles and lifecycle models

Experience with structured project management methodologies such as Waterfall, Scrum and Agile

Excellent stakeholder management, both internal and external, with superb communication skills

Experience in managing customer relationships, ideally within the Defence Sector

Strong leadership and team coordination capabilities

Proficiency in project management tools (e.g., MS Project, Jira)

Desirable:

Formal certification (e.g., APM PMQ, PRINCE2, AgilePM)

Defence/aerospace/highly regulated environment experience

Delivery involving software, firmware and hardware integration

Systems Engineering V-Lifecycle understanding

Physical production and/or product through-life support experience