Governance & Assurance Lead

Job title Governance & Assurance Lead Ref 41868 Division Finance & Commercial Location Hybrid - Clearwater Court - RG1 8DB Contract type Permanent Full/Part-time Full-time Salary Competitive salary up to £75,000 per annum, depending on experience Job grade C Closing date 25/02/2026

In this role, you will be managing a portfolio of strategic capital programmes and projects through governance and assurance initiatives. Facing off vs Strategic Sponsor, and supporting the Strategic Sponsor delivery model by formally controlling strategic outcomes and benefits.

What you'll be doing as a Governance & Assurance Lead

• Develop and implement prioritised governance & assurance reviews of several strategic programmes to evaluate the integrity of scope, cost, risk, time & outcome
• Drive performance improvement. Act as a critical friend to strategic sponsors/sub-programme managers. to ensure best practice, & to highlight & challenge trends, performance, & deviation from strategic programme and sub-programme baselines.
• Develop and implement robust methodology to assure benefit & outcome delivery
• Ensure line of sight for funding back to the current plan
• Work with colleagues across PMO to ensure a consistent approach to QRF / budget
• Assure the change control of Strategic Intent documents (owned by the sponsor teams). Ensure alignment between change-controlled intent documents and delivery plans. Challenge and address inconsistency
• Support other teams across PMO and across the wider business to deliver robust assurance and governance processes and systems, drive behaviour & best practice, and support the implementation of the strategic sponsorship model
• Optimises management of project/programme stage gate process in conjunction with the Head of AM&E, spoke and sponsors

Base Location: Reading - Hybrid

Working Pattern or hours: 36 hours

What you should bring to the role To thrive in this role, the essential criteria you'll need are:

• Comprehensive knowledge and understanding of portfolios and programmes governance and assurance
• Experience of delivering portfolio or programme governance and assurance processes and standards
• Ability to manage and provide value-added information and recommendations to senior stakeholders, including strategic sponsors
• Ability to make risk-based decisions where the parameters are unclear, and judgment is needed
• Experience of influencing and working across multidisciplinary teams
• Delivery of activities to build capability, improve efficiency and increase maturity
• Ability to manage complex portfolios and programmes, anticipating and managing high-level risks and uncertainties
• Experience in identifying and implementing robust business solutions in collaboration with teams

Additional skills and experiences would be great to have/bring:

• Higher education, preferably in Business Management, Commercial, Engineering, Project Management or Finance-related subject
• Technical proficiency of IT solutions required to manage, control and report on project, programme and portfolio scope, schedule, resource requirements, budgets, risks, opportunities and issues, benefits, and quality
• Proficiency in project management methodologies and tools (EVM, risk management, scheduling software)

What's in it for you?

• Competitive salary up to £75,000 per annum, depending on experience
• Annual Leave - 26 days holiday per year, increasing to 30 with the length of service (plus bank holidays)
• Private Medical Health Care
• Performance-related pay plan directly linked to company performance measures and targets
• Generous Pension Scheme through AON
• Access to lots of benefits to help you take care of you and your family's health and wellbeing, and your finances - from annual health MOTs and access to physiotherapy and counselling, to Cycle to Work schemes, shopping vouchers and life assurance.

Disclaimer: Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.