Defra Group Property (DgP) Project Manager

About the job

• Benefits
• Things you need to know
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Location

Welwyn Garden City, East of England, AL7 1HE : Birmingham, West Midlands (England), B3 1AQ : Worthing, South East England, BN11 1LD : Bristol, South West England, BS1 5AH : Workington, North West England, CA14 2DD : Carlisle, North West England, CA3 8DX : Cambridge, East of England, CB2 2DR : Cardiff, Wales, CF14 7YU : Chelmsford, East of England, CM2 5PF : Crewe, North West England, CW1 6GJ : Blandford Forum, South West England, DT11 8ST : Exeter, South West England, EX2 7LQ : Lincoln, East Midlands (England), LN2 4DW : Leeds, Yorkshire and the Humber, LS11 9AT : Manchester, North West England, M4 3AQ : Maidstone, South East England, ME16 0LU : Wrotham Heath, South East England, ME19 5SH : Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England, NE4 7AR : Alnwick, North East England, NE66 2PF : West Bridgford, East Midlands (England), NG2 5FA : Kettering, East Midlands (England), NN15 6JQ : Norwich, East of England, NR3 1UB : Lowestoft, East of England, NR33 0HT : Oxford, South East England, OX2 0AX : Peterborough, East of England, PE1 1NG : Peterborough, East of England, PE2 8YY : Brampton, East of England, PE28 4NE : Bodmin, South West England, PL31 1EB : Reading, South East England, RG1 1AR : Rotherham, Yorkshire and the Humber, S60 1BY : Sheffield, Yorkshire and the Humber, S9 4WF : Carmarthen, Wales, SA31 2NF : Romsey, South East England, SO51 8DU : City of Westminster, London (region), SW1P 4DF : Shrewsbury, West Midlands (England), SY3 8BB : Bridgwater, South West England, TA6 4YS : Threemilestone, South West England, TR4 9NY : Warrington, North West England, WA4 1HT : Worcester, West Midlands (England), WR5 2NP : York, Yorkshire and the Humber, YO1 7PX

About the job

Job summary

Within DgP w e provide services that underpin workplaces for more than 30,000 colleagues , covering an extensive portfolio of almost 300 sites across Defra Group . Defra has the largest estate by area within the whole of government (c900,000 acres) , comprising a diverse mix of operational and administrative assets. The portfolio includes offices, depots, incident response facilities, warehouses, laboratories, port and border inspection facilities, stores and land

As a Project Manager in DgP as part of Defra’s wider Project Delivery profession the successful candidate will be providing end to end Project Management leadership and the application of technical project management skills and experience to deliver a range of Property related projects. This role provides the successful candidate with an opportunity to work across DgP and with the wider Defra Group with the Arms Length Bodies when delivery property related project ensuring property solutions act as enabler to wider Defra Group outcomes

The team is looking for a confident, collaborative and delivery-focused Project Manager who can operate effectively across organisational boundaries, bringing together property and programme delivery to achieve shared outcomes. Your role will be central in ensuring the successful integration of property within the Water Regulator programme

Job description

This Project Manager role initially focusses on the Water Regulator Programme within Defra Group Property (DgP) but as a generic Project Manager will also in the long term cover other property related projects.

Our ambitious 25-year Environment Plan and legislative agenda is delivering transformational change across the Environment, Agriculture and Marine sectors. As part of this, Defra is establishing a new Water Regulator to strengthen oversight, improve environmental outcomes and ensure the long-term sustainability of water resources.

Defra Group Property plays a critical role in enabling this delivery. Our estate underpins essential services—from offices and laboratories to operational infrastructure that supports flood resilience, environmental monitoring and national capability. As we support the creation of the Water Regulator, property will be fundamental in ensuring the organisation is set up to operate effectively, safely and sustainably.

This role sits at the intersection of Defra Group Property and the wider Water Regulator Programme. The Project Manager will act as a key link between DgP and programme stakeholders across the Defra Group, ensuring that property-related requirements are fully understood, integrated and delivered as part of the wider programme. You will play a crucial role in aligning strategic property delivery with programme objectives, ensuring a coherent and joined-up approach.

The Defra Group is a large and complex organisation of around 30,000 staff, working across core Defra and its arm’s length bodies, with significant investment in infrastructure and transformation programmes. Delivering the Water Regulator requires strong, coordinated project leadership across multiple functions and stakeholders

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and manage the delivery of property-related elements of the Water Regulator programme, ensuring alignment with wider programme objectives.
• Act as the key interface between Defra Group Property and the Water Regulator Programme, ensuring effective coordination, communication and integration.
• Provide day-to-day leadership and management of the project and wider Project Group, establishing appropriate governance, structures and controls.
• Develop and maintain robust project plans, ensuring delivery is clearly tracked and reported across both DgP and programme governance structures.
• Ensure property requirements are clearly defined, scoped and delivered in line with programme timelines, budget and quality expectations

Person specification

You will be able to demonstrate the following skills and experience

Project Delivery & Integration

• Proven experience delivering complex projects or programmes, ideally across organisational or functional boundaries.
• Experience operating in a “bridge” role, coordinating delivery between multiple teams or departments.

Stakeholder Engagement & Influence

• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to build relationships and influence at senior levels.
• Experience working across organisational boundaries to align priorities and resolve competing demands.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Ability to lead multidisciplinary teams and create a collaborative, high-performing environment.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate complex requirements between technical and non-technical stakeholders .

Governance, Planning & Controls

• Experience establishing governance, project controls and reporting in complex delivery environments.
• Ability to manage plans, budgets and performance within agreed constraints.

Risk, Issue & Change Management

• Strong ability to identify and manage risks, issues and interdependencies, particularly across programme interfaces.
• Experience managing change in a dynamic and evolving programme environment.

Planning

• Experience of developing and maintaining delivery plans including roadmaps and resource plans
• Experience of embedding the use of plan in a Project and reporting against progress against the plan

Data & Digital Capability

• Experience using data and digital tools to monitor delivery, generate insights and inform decision-making.

Qualifications

APM or Prince 2

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Delivering at Pace
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £56,375, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs contributes

£16,331 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.

Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Flexi Time Policy . Our Flexi-time policy allows you to vary your hours from day to day, within the requirements of your role, to suit your needs and to offer a better work/life balance.

Leave . If you work full time at Defra you are entitled to 25 days’ leave (rising, over 5 years, to 30 days’). If you work part time it will be pro-rated.

Privilege day . You are also entitled to a privilege day off in May to mark the King’s birthday (date varies), plus time off for the 8 public holidays a year.

Career breaks . We recognise that your work-life balance can extend beyond the short-term to the longer-term, and to support this you are able to apply for career breaks. These are unpaid extended breaks from work, granted at the discretion of the department.

Volunteering leave - 3 days paid volunteering leave every year (pro-rata). Once you have passed probation.

Season ticket loan – for an interest free season ticket loan, if you have worked within the Defra for more than three months. This can be used to purchase train and bus season tickets, as well as station car parking.

Tenancy deposit loan – for an interest free loan, to assist you in meeting the deposit costs for your privately rented home.

Salary advances and loans for other circumstances – for salary advances and loans in the following circumstances: for new entrants, for the purchase of bicycles, holidays and religious holidays.

Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) scheme – Since the closure to new entrants of the employer childcare voucher scheme, the government introduced the Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) scheme . In this scheme, working parents open an online childcare account and for every £8 they pay in, the government adds £2, up to a maximum of £2,000 a year for each child or £4,000 for a disabled child. Parents then use the funds to pay for registered childcare.

Support to buy a bicycle – we run two schemes that can help you buy a bicycle for your commute:

• The Cycle to Work Scheme – you can apply for a bicycle for your commute, up to the value of £6,000, which is recovered from you through salary sacrifice, as a tax-free benefit. At the end of the repayment period, you have the option to buy the bike if you wish, saving around 30% of the original cost.
• Bike loan – if you are not eligible to apply for the Cycle to Work Scheme, you can apply for a loan of up to £1,000 towards the cost of a bike using the Bike loan scheme . This however is not a salary sacrifice scheme.

High-street and online discounts . Offers through SmartSpending™ which is accessed through the StaR platform. Accessible 24/7, you can save at hundreds of top retailers.

Maternity leave, paternity leave and shared parental leave . We offer generous maternity leave, paternity leave and shared parental leave – a total of 52 weeks leave to look after your new baby, regardless of your length of service. Most mothers are entitled to 39 weeks of paid leave, and a further 13 weeks of unpaid leave. Most partners are entitled to 15 days of paid paternity leave. Shared parental leave arrangements are in place, allowing parents to divide their leave with each other.

Professional Membership . Defra group will fund one professional membership for each permanent employee which is relevant to their role.

Eye care scheme . If you use a computer screen in connection with your job, we will pay for a regular eyesight test, and you may also be entitled to help towards purchasing new glasses, if they are needed for computer use.

The Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is a free 24/7 confidential telephone advice service, available to all of our staff throughout the year.

Civil Service Sports Council . The opportunity to join the Civil Services Sports Council.

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