Head Of It Projects

The founder and sponsor of the Harris Federation, Lord Harris of Peckham, opened our first school in 1990. We have, over the past thirty years, implemented ideas and initiatives that have transformed the opportunities of pupils from working class and disadvantaged backgrounds. Harris academies are widely recognised as a force for social mobility. We are immensely proud of the role that our alumni are now beginning to play in the world and of what we believe our current generation of pupils will go on to achieve.

We now have over 50 schools educating more than 40,000 young people across London and Essex, and employ over 5,000 staff across our academies and Head office. With the majority of our academies located in areas of high socioeconomic disadvantage, a high-quality education is key to the futures of the pupils we serve.

As a provider of employment and education, we value the diversity of our staff and students, and all our staff are equally valued and respected. We are committed to providing a fair, equitable and mutually supportive learning and working environment for our students and staff.

Our work will impact many generations to come, and our staff come from all backgrounds and walks of life, coming together to inspire young minds. We promote an inclusive culture that embraces the valuable and enriching contribution that all of our community make. We continue to be proactive in uplifting and supporting all voices at Harris.

To discover more about our culture, ethos and what it is like to work here, visit the Why Work For Us page.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Being a key member of the IT Senior Leadership Team and IT Projects team within the IT, Security & Data directorate
• Leading a team of two Project Managers and one Project Officer
• Supporting the IT Projects team in their delivery of projects
• Leading relationship management with Principals and Assistant Directors
• The creation and delivery of programmes of works managed by the IT teams across an organisation of c. 45,000 end users across over 50+ sites
• Developing and leading the yearly programme plan and agreed projects
• Owning the IT lifecycle refresh across our academies in partnership with external delivery partners to oversee a multi-year technology modernisation
• Ensuring all projects are planned, managed to quality expectations, and delivered on-time, to budget and specification
• Ensuring programme and or project documentation is completed and signed off
• Managing programme budgets and associated project budgets in the millions of pounds
• Liaison with organisational stakeholders to agree user need, requirements, timescales, budgets and specifications
• Resource management across programmes
• Ensuring effective change management
• Ensuring projects are effectively transitioned to a live state
• Preparing requests for proposals and invitation to tenders
• Planning and overseeing the preparation and dissemination of programme and project communications
• Role modelling behaviours for the wider directorate, living and breathing the team’s vision and missions
• Chairing various Programme and Project Boards
• Developing, implementing, maintaining and communicating policies and procedures to programme and Project Management services
• Liaising with Principals and develop an understanding of client needs, developing strategies appropriate to their needs, providing a value-for-money service and definition and delivery of agreed projects
• Arranging regular reviews with Academy IT leads

We would like to hear from you if you have:

• A degree level qualification
• Prince2, APM Project Management Qualification (PMQ) or Agile Practitioner qualification
• 5-10 years' experience of managing IT infrastructure projects of various scope and scale up to millions of pounds of spend
• Confident in dealing with all levels of stakeholders
• Ability to apply problem solving techniques and get results
• Ability to troubleshoot, investigate and resolve technical issues
• Ability to react quickly and effectively to issues and opportunities
• Ability to self-manage, organise, and prioritise tasks and work under pressure during troubleshooting and problem-solving

For a full job description and person specification, please download the Job Pack.

If you would like to discuss the opportunity further, or if you have any questions, please contact us via email to arrange a conversation.

Before applying please ensure you download the job pack from our careers website, this will help with completing your application. Please note that we only accept applications submitted online before the closing date.

When applying, you will have the option to import your CV or use a LinkedIn profile which will auto populate the online application. 

A reminder to check your junk mail for our email communications and add us to your safe senders list to ensure all future email communication is received.