Clinical Research IT Project Manager (VISA INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES ONLY)

Regulated environments such as CRO organizations experience is Huge plus

Job Purpose:

The Principal IT Project Manager is accountable for the end-to-end delivery of technology projects that are of critical importance and/or high complexity, ensuring predictable execution, strong governance, and measurable business outcomes. The role leads cross-functional delivery teams in a matrix environment, applying expert project management discipline to manage scope, schedule, budget, risks, dependencies, and stakeholder expectations. The Principal Project Manager operates with a high degree of autonomy, provides delivery assurance for key initiatives, and mentors other Project Managers through coaching, standards adoption, and escalation support.

Key Accountabilities:

Accountability

Supporting Activities

Delivery Leadership for Critical & Complex Technology Projects

• Lead the full project lifecycle for critical and/or highly complex technology initiatives, ensuring delivery to agreed scope, timelines, budgets, and quality outcomes.
• Establish and maintain integrated delivery plans, milestone tracking, delivery governance cadence, and execution discipline across multi-team workstreams.
• Drive alignment across business and technology stakeholders to achieve outcomes, manage trade-offs, and resolve delivery blockers quickly and transparently.
• Ensure delivery artefacts, decisions, and approvals are documented and auditable in line with governance and delivery standards.

Stakeholder Management, Governance & Executive Communication

• Act as the primary delivery point of contact for senior stakeholders, providing clear status, forecasting, decision points, and recommendations.
• Chair and run project governance forums (e.g., steering, working groups), ensuring risks, issues, scope changes, and dependencies are surfaced early and managed through to resolution.
• Manage stakeholder expectations through structured communications, change control, and transparent reporting, including executive-ready updates on progress, risk posture, and delivery impacts.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Architecture, Security, and Operations to ensure solutions are feasible, supportable, and aligned to roadmaps and standards.

Delivery Assurance & Risk / Dependency Management

• Proactively manage delivery risk by identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks, issues, and cross-project dependencies; implement recovery plans where required.
• Apply expert judgement to anticipate delivery failure modes (capacity, integration, vendor, compliance, operational readiness) and escalate with clear options and impacts.
• Support portfolio-level delivery by contributing to prioritisation discussions, dependency mapping, and capacity-aware planning for major initiatives.

Skills:

• Expert knowledge of enterprise project management methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, hybrid) and governance practices, with strong delivery assurance capability.
• Proven ability to lead delivery of large-scale, complex technology projects in matrixed, cross-functional environments.
• Exceptional stakeholder management, communication, and influencing skills, including confident engagement with senior executives.
• Strong risk, issue, dependency, and change control management, with a practical, outcomes-focused approach to decision-making and trade-offs.
• High proficiency in project delivery and reporting tools (e.g., Azure DevOps, Jira, Smartsheet, MS Project, ServiceNow).
• Strong commercial and financial acumen, including budgeting, forecasting, and benefits/value tracking for technology investments.
• Able to operate with autonomy, resilience, and composure under pressure; adept at navigating ambiguity and organizational change.
• Open and collaborative mindset, willingness to work as a team with integrity, honesty, and transparency.

Knowledge and Experience:

• Demonstrated experience delivering complex, cross-functional technology programmes / projects at enterprise scale with multiple workstreams, vendors, and dependencies.
• Strong understanding of digital, data, and technology ecosystems, ideally within life sciences, CRO, or regulated industries.
• Experience working within governance models that require clear audit trails, decision logs, and structured change control.
• Experience influencing without authority, aligning diverse stakeholder groups, and driving delivery through clear outcomes and disciplined execution.
• Knowledge of GxP validation, or regulated technology environments are desirable.

Education:

• Educated to degree level in Business, Technology, Engineering, Life Sciences, or an equivalent discipline.
• Professional certifications desirable: PMP, PgMP, PfMP, SAFe, MSP, or similar.
• Equivalent experience in enterprise project/portfolio management leadership also considered.