Practice Lead, Project Management @ Codec

The Practice Lead, Project Management reports to the Director of Consulting & Delivery Leadership and is responsible for the leadership of the people within the Project Management practice ensuring the growth, performance and commercial success of Codec's Project Management practice, supporting overall delivery under the governance of the Chief Delivery Officer. The role combines people leadership, delivery leadership and practice development, ensuring projects are delivered successfully while building a high-performing team and scalable project management capability. The Practice Lead will lead a team of Project and Portfolio Managers, provide oversight of project delivery across the practice, drive operational excellence and contribute to business growth through effective resource management, customer engagement and support for sales and pre-sales activities.

The role balances client-facing delivery responsibilities with leadership of the wider practice and is expected to maintain a level of chargeability while developing the capability, maturity and performance of the function, supporting both the Director of Consulting and the Chief Delivery Officer in achieving overall delivery excellence.

• Practice Leadership: Input to and support on the strategic direction of the Project Management practice.
• Embed and consistently reinforce Codec’s consulting standards, professional behaviours and leadership expectations across the Project Management practice Build a high-performing, commercially successful and scalable project delivery function.
• Lead adoption of AI-enabled project and programme management practices, ensuring the practice uses approved tools, standards and reusable approaches to improve quality, productivity and consistency Drive consistency, quality and best practices across all projects and programmes.
• Create reusable assets, templates and frameworks to improve efficiency and delivery quality.
• Partner with other Practice Leads and business leaders to support organisational goals and delivery excellence.
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation and continuous improvement.
• Maintain a succession and leadership pipeline for critical Project, Programme and Portfolio Management roles.
• Delivery Leadership: Provide oversight and governance across project and programme delivery within the practice.
• Ensure projects are delivered on time, within budget and to the required quality standards or escalated where needed Support Project Managers in managing complex risks, issues, dependencies and stakeholder relationships.
• Act as an escalation point for significant delivery challenges ensuring timely communication to the Chief Delivery Officer Monitor project performance, utilisation, profitability and customer outcomes.
• Drive proactive risk management and effective delivery governance across the project portfolio.
• Ensure project management practices align with client expectations and Codec delivery standards.
• Maintain a visible leadership presence across delivery teams, regularly engaging employees and customers to reinforce expectations, gather feedback and build confidence.
• People Leadership : Lead, coach and develop all member of the Project Management as visible, accountable client and people leaders, aligned with the leadership capability model established by the Director Ensure performance reviews, career development discussions and succession planning activities are proactively managed, Support employee engagement, wellbeing and professional growth within the team.
• Build capability through mentoring, knowledge sharing and professional development initiatives.
• Implement the organisational career framework, progression criteria and capability expectations within the practice, providing evidence-based recommendations on promotion and succession Identify capability, behavioural and performance gaps early and take timely, constructive action in partnership with the Director and People team.
• Promote collaboration and knowledge sharing across practices and delivery teams.
• Resource & Commercial Management: Own practice utilisation and resource planning, ensuring effective deployment of project management capability.
• Work closely with Delivery Leaders and Practice Leads to match resources to client demand.
• Support workforce planning, recruitment and onboarding activities.
• Monitor practice performance against utilisation, revenue and profitability targets.
• Contribute to forecasting, budgeting and capacity planning activities.
• Drive operational efficiencies that support sustainable practice growth Use delivery telemetry and tooling outputs to identify behavioural, capability and performance trends and translate these into coaching and improvement actions Identify recurring organisational delivery and leadership issues, escalate systemic themes to the Director and CDO, and lead agreed improvement actions Customer Leadership: Build trusted advisor relationships with clients and key stakeholder groups.
• Support customer success through strong delivery oversight and proactive engagement.
• Participate in executive-level client discussions where required.
• Ensure high levels of customer satisfaction and successful project outcomes.
• Identify opportunities to expand services and strengthen client relationships.
• Escalate strategically significant, sensitive or systemic delivery concerns promptly and support joint intervention with the Director and CDO.
• Business Development & Pre-Sales: Support sales and business development activities by providing project delivery expertise.
• Contribute to proposals, estimates, Statements of Work and project planning activities.
• Participate in customer presentations, workshops and solution discussions.
• Provide delivery governance input into bids and complex opportunities.
• Ensure proposed solutions can be delivered effectively, efficiently and profitably.