Job Description

The Portfolio Delivery Manager is responsible for maintaining a portfolio of strategically aligned and prioritised projects within a specific business area in line with the Sellafield Gated Process. This includes developing, assuring, and governing project briefs, studies, functional specifications, Integrated Assurance and Approval Plans (IAAPs), and business cases. The role requires continual broad scanning, internally and externally, for best practice maintaining an ever improving, integrated, and standardised project delivery approach to build confidence for all stakeholders.

The Portfolio Delivery Manager leads on early risk retirement and opportunity realisation during project optioneering, collaborating closely with the Project Delivery organisation to ensure the smooth transition from portfolio-led to project-led delivery.

Principal Accountabilities

• Support the Head of Portfolio/Business Office in ensuring a portfolio of strategically aligned projects is maintained by identifying benefits and prioritising the project pipeline. This also includes identifying required studies, producing project briefs, and facilitating the establishment of any required projects in the Lifetime Plan baseline.
• Lead on the production of project documentation, including project briefs, study reports, functional specifications, and business cases, ensuring that project requirements and tolerances are clear and understood.
• Facilitate project option selection, ensuring the best value option is selected that fulfils business requirements, reduces risk, maximises opportunities, recognises interdependencies and constraints, and incorporates learning. This may include conducting framing exercises, or Peer Assists, to support the down selection from longlist to shortlist through to selection of the preferred solution.
• Liaise with the Head of Projects to appoint project managers, working with them to ensure the appropriate capability and capacity requirements are available.
• Liaise with Project Managers to manage the transition from portfolio-led activity to project-led activity during the Appraise & Select stage. This includes ensuring that benefits, risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies, exclusions, and decisions identified, managed, and reported on as part of portfolio-led activity are effectively transferred.
• Identify, cultivate, and manage relationships with stakeholders through effective communication.
• Lead the Business Analyst team, providing strategic direction, thought leadership and best practice guidance, as well as supporting the development of direct reports through mentoring and staff appraisals.
• Support the development, implementation and embedding of fit-for-purpose governance and assurance for projects, ensuring they remain strategically aligned, affordable, deliverable, and valid. This includes producing and maintaining appropriate documentation, such as the Integrated Assurance and Approval Plan (IAAP), Governance & Assurance Logbook and IAAP Explained documents.
• Collaborate closely with the Head of Projects to enact project progress and status reporting that enables informed portfolio decision-making.
• Drive innovation by identifying opportunities to optimise portfolio performance through, for example, cross-cutting initiatives across projects.

Context and Challenges

The Portfolio Delivery Manager will lead and support the delivery of a wide variety of ICT and Digital activities (jobs, tasks, and projects). Each activity brings its own unique challenges with some more dominant in security/hazard and risk reduction and others more dominant in behavioural and culture change. The Portfolio Delivery Manager will be expected to take time to understand the unique characteristics and challenges within the environment they are operating within and flex and adapt their approach to suit given scenarios.

The biggest challenge a Portfolio Delivery Manager will face is the process of how to efficaciously deliver each activity, managing complex and complicated interfaces and interdependencies and how to satisfy the various stakeholder expectations and demands. Activities that are in the early stage of their lifecycle are typically more difficult and complex than those in delivery. This is because of the high volume of definition, planning and stakeholder engagement that is required prior to an activity commencing and during the definition stages each activity’s lifecycle.

Essential Skills

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent qualification or experience in a relevant field, such as IT, business management, or portfolio, programme, or project management.
• Experience leading and managing teams in a project, programme, or portfolio environment, demonstrating the knowledge, skills, and experience to act credibly on behalf of the Head of Portfolio/Business Office.
• Knowledge of scope writing, requirements management, and value management.
• Knowledge of benefits management techniques.
• Knowledge of embedding change in an organisation and business change techniques, such as business process modelling and gap analysis.
• Effective stakeholder engagement and communication skills, able to form collaborative working relationships, influence others and provide appropriate challenge as required.
• A drive to continuously improve, constantly identifying opportunities to learn and apply best practice.

Desirable Skills

• Training in, or a relevant qualification in, project, portfolio, or programme management, change management, or benefits management.
• Understanding of Sellafield Ltd, including its operations and ICT estate or equivalent.
• Experience of Sellafield Ltd governance and assurance arrangements.

Additional Information

• Open VN
• Number of Vacancies: 1
• Contact: Lucy Jenkinson

The interviews for this vacancy are expected to be on 26th June 2026.

ASW’s may have the right to apply for internal Sellafield Ltd vacancies. Please note if you are an Agency Supplied Worker you are required to attach evidence of all qualifications obtained to support your application. We require a minimum of A*-C (9-4) GCSE in English Language, Maths & Science/IT or equivalent / higher qualification.

If you choose to apply for this role and your application is shortlisted by the hiring manager, you will be invited to a competency based interview. In the interview, you will be assessed against the below competencies:

Behavioural:
1. Leading change
2. Driving for results
3. Collaboration and teamwork
4. Resilience

Technical:
1. Driving and facilitating change – (37.6)
2. Management Control

Please see link to the competency framework for further information:
https://slportal.ssa-intra.net/pub/SC001/00027/Competency%20Framework/Forms/AllItems.aspx

If your technical competency is not in the above framework, please refer to the profession’s share point page for further information.

During the interview, you will also be expected to give a 10 minute presentation on
“Managing Demand in a Constrained Resource Environment” Explain how the Portfolio Delivery Manager will lead the Business Analysis team who face ongoing challenges delivering a quality, timely service in an environment where workload exceeds the available capability and capacity of the team whilst maintaining stakeholder buy-in.

This presentation should be sent to recruitment@sellafieldcloud.co.uk via email at least two working days before your interview. You should also take four paper copies of your presentation to your interview in case of any IT issues on the day.

Sellafield Ltd are recognised as a Disability Confident Employer (Level 3). Disability Confident employers offer an interview to disabled applicants that meet the minimum criteria for a vacancy. Sellafield Ltd define the minimum criteria as the ‘essential skills’ which are listed on the vacancy notice. Whilst completing your application form, you will be able to indicate if you wish to be considered under the disability confident scheme. If you would prefer to discuss this directly with us, please contact the GBS Recruitment team on recruitment@sellafieldcloud.co.uk

Please ensure that you save a copy of this advert for future reference if you make an application for this role.

The closing date for this vacancy is 31st May 2026.