PMO LEAD Estates & Facilities Sector

PMO Lead

Rate - £500 (A day)

Location - West London (Hybrid)

Duration - 6 Months (Initially)

Ir35 - Inside (Must use an umbrella company)

The PMO Lead is responsible for establishing, developing, and running a best-practice Programme Management Office to support a portfolio of property, construction, estates, facilities, and capital investment projects. This role ensures that governance, reporting, performance management, risk controls, and programme assurance frameworks are consistently applied to deliver projects on time, on budget, and in line with organisational standards.

The PMO Lead acts as the central point of coordination, enabling project teams and senior leaders to make informed decisions and ensuring the successful delivery of complex, high-value capital programmes.

Key Responsibilities

PMO Set-Up & Governance

• Design, implement, and embed the PMO framework, including governance structures, standards, processes, and toolkits.
• Develop project and programme methodologies tailored to property, construction, estates, and capital projects.
• Establish project lifecycle frameworks including stage gates, business case standards and project controls.
• Lead the creation of PMO policies across risk, change control, issue management, quality assurance, and reporting.

Programme Controls & Reporting

• Develop and manage robust reporting mechanisms including dashboards, portfolio status updates and executive-level performance summaries.
• Maintain accurate programme-wide schedules, resource plans, risk registers, and financial trackers.
• Monitor KPIs, forecasting, benefits realisation and budget performance across the project portfolio.
• Provide challenge and assurance to project managers, ensuring quality and compliance with PMO standards.

Stakeholder Management

• Support senior leadership, capital project sponsors and operational teams with strategic insights and data-driven decision-making.
• Facilitate programme board meetings, governance forums and oversight groups, ensuring effective documentation and follow-through.
• Act as a trusted advisor to project managers, offering guidance, coaching, and support on delivery best practice.

Systems, Tools & Data

• Implement and manage PMO systems (e.g., MS Project, Power BI, PPM tools).
• Oversee data quality, portfolio analytics, and performance monitoring tools.
• Introduce continuous improvement initiatives to optimise PMO processes.

Assurance & Compliance

• Conduct project audits, health checks, and readiness reviews.
• Ensure compliance with organisational policy, safety regulations, and financial governance, particularly in construction and estates environments.
• Provide oversight on risk management, contractor performance, procurement compliance and capital governance processes.

Skills & Experience Required

Essential

• Proven track record establishing and running PMOs within property, construction, estates, facilities, or capital investment environments.
• Strong experience supporting multi-million-pound capital projects or programmes.
• In-depth understanding of construction processes, RIBA stages, programme controls, cost management, procurement and risk frameworks.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement across technical teams, contractors, consultants, and senior leadership.
• Highly proficient with project/programme management tools (e.g., MS Project, Power BI, Excel, PPM systems).
• Ability to design governance frameworks and drive organisational adoption.
• Strong analytical, reporting, and data management skills.

Desirable

• Professional qualifications: APM PMQ, MSP, PRINCE2, MoP, or equivalent.
• Experience within public sector, higher education, healthcare estates, or large corporate real estate.
• Knowledge of capital planning, lifecycle costing, estates strategies, or FM systems.
• Understanding of health & safety, CDM regulations, and compliance standards within built environments.