About this role
Job summary
The New Hospital Programme is more than building hospitals, it's a once in a generation opportunity to shape the future of healthcare in England. We're delivering over 40 new hospitals that will be modern, sustainable and built around the needs of patients and staff. We're looking for people who care about purpose, who thrive in complex environments and who want to help deliver change at scale for future generations.
Main duties of the job
We are seeking an experienced Senior Programme Manager to play a pivotal role in delivering the New Hospital Programme's strategic objectives.
Working across a complex portfolio of projects and business change activities, you will provide leadership and coordination across programme teams and integration workstreams, ensuring successful delivery of key outcomes. You will be responsible for driving robust governance, assurance, performance monitoring, risk management and organisational readiness for change, with a strong focus on safety, compliance and continuous improvement.
The role will also oversee the coordination and assurance of Occupant Safety across programmes, ensuring risks are effectively managed and programme objectives are delivered safely and efficiently.
We are looking for someone with:
- Significant experience managing large-scale programmes and complex portfolios.
- Strong leadership, stakeholder engagement and influencing skills.
- Experience in governance, assurance, risk management and performance reporting.
- A track record of delivering business change and organisational transformation.
- Knowledge of safety, compliance and programme management best practice.
About us
NHS England has a wide range of statutory functions, responsibilities and regulatory powers. These are focused on supporting the wider NHS to deliver high quality care, as well as doing those things that are best done once for the whole NHS.
Our staff bring expertise across clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial specialisms -- enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.
In March 2025,the Government announcedthat NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the department.
If you currently work within the NHS and if successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR).This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the process.
Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in our offices.
Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.
We cannot offer visa sponsorship for any vacancies.
Job description
Job responsibilities
You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.
For more information on the NHP programme
Due to ongoing organisational change and developments, aspects of this role may be subject to change.
By applying for this position, you acknowledge and understand that NHS England is currently undergoing a consultation process to finalise its structure, which may impact this role.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Educated to masters level or equivalent level of experience of working at a senior level in specialist area.
Desirable
- Professional qualification or equivalent experience of project and programme management techniques and tools such as Prince 2 or Managing Successful Projects
Experience
Essential
- Experience in organisational leadership and delivering successful Major Programmes
- Experience of working across multiple healthcare systems
- Experience of working at a senior level in a complex environment, managing multiple transformation projects with a range of stakeholders
- Experience of leading and delivering large scale transformational change and the ability to convey a compelling and engaging vision of change
- Experience of translating strategy into delivery through plans, programmes, people and culture.
- Knowledge and application of risk awareness and management
- Knowledge of commissioning practices and models
- Experience and/or understanding of the UK Health Economy
- Significant experience of managing and prioritising a large budget with solid knowledge of financial process requirements
Skills
Essential
- Ability to work positively with stakeholders to achieve outcomes and deliver change through people
- Highly developed interpersonal, advocacy and communication skills to be able to work effectively with individuals and a range of stakeholders
- Strong commercial awareness and skills
- Strong influencing and negotiation skills
- Experience of delivering against competing priorities and deadlines while also directing the work of teams/individuals
- Ability to analyse highly complex issues where material is conflicting and drawn from multiple sources (verbal, written and numerical)
Employer details
Employer name
NHS England
Address
Any NHSE Office base
Nationally
SE1 8UG
United Kingdom
Employer's website
https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/working-for/ (Opens in a new tab)