Project Manager – Partnerships and Major Projects

About the job

What will I be doing?

UCS College Group is seeking two Project Managers to join our Partnerships & Major Projects team, at the heart of the Group’s Strategy area.

Somerset is in the middle of something genuinely significant. Hinkley Point C is Europe’s largest construction project. The Agratas battery gigafactory at Gravity will reshape the region’s industrial base for a generation. UCS College Group is the skills partner at the centre of both, and these two posts sit inside that work — one focused primarily on our Clean Energy Technical Excellence College, the other on our Agratas partnership. They are the kind of projects most project managers only read about.

But that is only part of the job, and in some ways not the most rewarding part.

Alongside the headline programmes, you will manage a varied portfolio of smaller projects across the College Group. Some of these are modest in value — tens of thousands rather than millions — and they are often the ones that matter most. They are the funded opportunities that open a door for a group of students or staff who rarely get access to new money: a piece of equipment that changes what a course can offer, a programme that reaches learners we have struggled to reach before. They carry the same audit and compliance requirements as the multi-million pound schemes, and they deserve the same rigour. Done well, you will see the difference in people’s lives, often within the same academic year.

Reporting to the Group Director of Partnerships & Major Projects and working with leaders across the College Group, you will hold several projects and workstreams at once — keeping them on track, on budget and on time, and maintaining the audit trails our funding streams demand. You will be a skilled expeditor: the person who spots the blocker early, chases the detail, and keeps momentum when a project is at risk of drifting.

This is a hands-on role. You will take ownership of actions yourself as well as holding others to theirs. Much of this work sits outside what a college normally does, so you will need to be adept at building relationships and negotiating internally to make things happen — that capability matters here as much as technical project management skill.

You will be a visible, energetic presence in the team, bringing discipline and structure to complex work while contributing to the culture of innovation, ambition and accountability that underpins our growth agenda. If you want variety, pace and work that is visibly connected to the region’s future — and to the students in front of us now — this is a role worth your attention.

What is in it for me?

UCS College Group offers a range of fantastic employee benefits including:

• Generous pension scheme
• Competitive holiday entitlement
• Dedicated CPD days
• 2 wellbeing days
• 2-week Christmas closure
• On-site discounted gym
• Free parking
• Discount platform
• Employee Assistance Programme

Supporting documents and information

UCS College Group is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and welcomes applicants from all backgrounds and communities. We are also a disability confident employer and we’ll do all we can to help with your application. Please let us know if you need to request reasonable adjustments. We encourage everyone to apply who wishes to and we believe that everyone should have an equal opportunity.

* Flexible and Hybrid working will be considered for the right candidate

Apply on the University Centre Somerset College Group website

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