Wellcome Trust

Salary: £76,700

Closing date: Wednesday, 12 February 2025

Contract type: Fixed Term Contract (6 months)

The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation. We improve health for everyone by funding science, leading policy and advocacy campaigns, and building partnerships. 

We plan to spend £16bn over the next ten years, funding new discoveries in life, health, and wellbeing, and taking on three global health challenges: mental health, infectious disease and climate and health. 

These challenges need the bold science we support, but they won’t be solved by science alone. 

We are looking for a Programme Manager, Climate & Health to join our team in the CEO’s Office to support the delivery of our Climate & Health portfolio.

Where in Wellcome will I be working? 

The role reports to the Head of Strategy Integration, Climate & Health. As a member of the Strategy Integration team in the CEO’s office, you will be enhancing programme and project management quality and capability at Wellcome while supporting the delivery of strategic initiatives across the organisation (primarily the Climate & Health portfolio).

The CEO Office is a central nexus for ensuring the organisation’s resources, processes, and activities are aligned to deliver Wellcome’s mission and strategy. It has a crucial role in developing Wellcome's strategy, related programmes and initiatives, and monitoring organisational impact.

What will I be doing? 

This role will ensure efficient and effective programme management by supporting programme leads in goal setting and planning, driving integration with the wider Solutions programme, and fostering an environment conducive to successful delivery and continuous improvement. 

As a Programme Manager, you will: 

• Support development of influence, engagement or research goals and outcomes and work with programme leads to develop and maintain a plan of work to achieve these; ensure integration of influence, engagement or research programme into whole portfolio, and support the team to collaborate effectively and focus on what is most important within the overall programme
• Facilitate group sessions for programme teams, including retrospectives, planning meetings and project kick-offs; Work to remove barriers to teams’ work and provide enablers for this, including:
• Manage the development and delivery of programme-level milestones with work stream leads across the business area. 
• Lead budget management and people planning and allocation for the team, including resource matrixed from elsewhere in Wellcome and manage and track key risks, priorities, escalating programme-level risks before they become issues, and ensuring that these risks are being addressed by the business area and Wellcome management. As well as coordinate internal communication plans and products as needed and support programme decision-making in line with delegation of authority, and managing the secretariat/administration of any Advisory or other groups for team’s work. 
• Share appropriate project and programme management, skills, approaches and best practice. And ensure alignment with corporate governance including preparation of programme documentation, including all necessary reports (for example; finance, delivery plans, risk registers, Executive Committee and Board of Governors’ papers). 
• Contribute to a diverse and inclusive culture across the organisation, collaborating across departments. 

Is this job for me?  

We are looking for an experienced Programme Manager well-versed in understanding an organisation’s mission and strategic priorities, with comprehensive expertise in various project and programme management approaches, tools, and risk management.

We are looking for someone who has: 

• Experience of delivering key projects/pieces of work to a high standard within tight deadlines, with a key alignment to the organisation’s mission of key strategic priorities and how role relates to these and the ability to work on multiple pieces of work across stakeholder groups as well as being able t work in a matrix setup
• Experience as a Programme Manager, experience in the use of project and programme management methodologies e.g. Agile, Prince2, proficient with programme planning and management tools with comprehensive programme management experience including managing complex programmes and experienced with risk management
• The ability to demonstrate experience of sharing learning within a Programme Management cohort with a strong planning, communication and presentation skills, and is proficient in project quality management
• Experience with coordinating competing priorities and multiple stakeholders and able to influence directly and indirectly in a matrix organization as well as experienced in planning and problem solving with programme management and delivery teams
• Communicates in a highly effective manner across a wide variety of mediums to create positive outcomes for all stakeholders and resolves complex conflicts and disputes elegantly, politically and to the satisfaction of all parties.
• Meticulous attention to detail including the ability to think in an analytical way with the ability to adapt well to change over the scope of a programme.

To apply please upload your current CV and complete our short application 

Interview dates: 03/03, 04/03 and 05/03

You can view the full job description on our website 

You can read more about the benefits we offer our employees on our website 

Our Hybrid Way of Working 

We understand that our colleagues have commitments and personal interests outside of work and we strive to build a flexible working environment, in which people can perform at their best. 

At Wellcome we have a hybrid way of working which is 3 days in our Euston Road offices (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) with the remaining 2 days working either remotely or in the office. 

Diversity and Inclusion is at the heart of everything we do 

Diversity and Inclusion is a priority at Wellcome. We are committed to cultivating a fair and inclusive environment, where everyone can be themselves and thrive. We are happy to discuss flexible working options for all roles. We work to ensure that our recruitment processes are as inclusive as possible to everyone. This includes making adjustments for people who have a disability or long-term condition. Please visit our website for more information on adjustments and accessibility, or contact us at jobs@wellcome.org. 

#LI-CD1

#LI-Hybrid