Senior Project Manager

The Senior Project Manager will be a pivotal part of Thames Water’s strategic data transformation, responsible for leading the orchestration of the Enterprise Data Strategy (EDS) and AI Strategy programme delivery.Reporting to the Director of Data, this role will oversee the full lifecycle of a critical, business-led engagement, managing delivery, coordination, and alignment across Thames Water’s executive stakeholders and the external consultancy partner.This is not an IT project delivery role. It requires a high calibre strategic operator with the credibility, discipline, and diplomacy to navigate senior relationships, drive programme momentum, and ensure that deliverables are business-owned, high quality, and outcome-focused, making sure the programme is delivered within budget, scope, and timelines.What you’ll be doing as a Senior Project Manager:

• Lead and coordinate the end-to-end delivery of Thames Water’s Enterprise Data Strategy and AI Strategy, working closely with the external consultancy partner and internal sponsors.
• Act as the strategic delivery lead across both workstreams, Enterprise Data and AI—ensuring they remain coherent, connected and aligned to AMP8 priorities.
• Engage regularly with Thames Water senior leaders and executives, across Retail, HR, Finance, Operations, Engineering, Digital, Regulatory and H&S, to ensure the strategy is business-owned and reflects enterprise-wide needs.
• Build trusted relationships with senior consultancy counterparts to manage scope, delivery expectations, and the integration of external insight into Thames Water’s internal context.
• Run and structure stakeholder workshops, steering groups, executive reviews, and working sessions, ensuring the right inputs and decisions are secured at the right time.
• Manage programme risks, milestones, interdependencies, and stakeholder alignment through structured governance and clear reporting.
• Maintain oversight of all outputs, strategy narrative, target operating model, roadmaps, value frameworks, ensuring they meet agreed quality and impact thresholds.

What you should bring to the role:

• Demonstrable experience managing strategic programmes in large, complex organisations, ideally involving external consultancies and senior executive engagement.
• Proven ability to operate with credibility at executive level, influencing and coordinating cross-functional decision-makers in a structured, outcome-oriented way.
• Deep experience in programme planning, risk management, governance, and managing ambiguity in fast-paced strategic environments.
• Strong communication, facilitation and presentation skills, including preparing materials for C-suite stakeholders and board-level forums.
• An understanding of data, digital, or AI-driven transformation in regulated sectors is desirable, though not essential.
• Familiarity with delivery frameworks (Agile, MSP, Prince2) is useful, but the emphasis is on leadership, coordination and strategic alignment—not task-level project execution.

What’s in it for you?

• Daily Pay Rate: £800 - £1000 per day
• IR35 determination: Inside IR35
• Location: Hybrid – Clear Water Court, Reading
• Contract: 6 months
• Start: ASAP

Please note you will be on assignment at Thames Water via Pertemps Who are we? At Thames Water, our purpose is crystal clear - to deliver life’s essential service so our customers, communities and planet can thrive.Water is life’s great leveller. Every living thing needs it, every single day. From people to plants, birds to bees, farms to factories, we all need it to thrive, and we’re committed to taking care of it for us all.But keeping water flowing is becoming harder. From scorching summers to wetter winters, extreme weather affects everything from our pipes to our local rivers. We need to keep millions more kettles boiling, public services operating, washing machines spinning, showers running and more, so every drop is more precious than ever. Are you ready to play your part?Working at Thames Water At Thames Water we recognise that people are at the heart of our business. To help us succeed in providing life's essential service, we need a range of skills and capabilities, representative of society throughout our business.We seek to attract and retain a cultural mix of people who can offer different but complementary attitudes, values, talents, and knowledge. We understand the importance of appreciating and harnessing the unique skills, experiences, background, and differences that each individual brings.Our over-arching diversity and inclusion aim is to ensure Thames Water is a diverse and inclusive great place to work. We encourage applications from everyone and offer extra support for those who need it throughout the recruitment process.Find out more about working at Thames Water.When a crisis happens, we all rally around to support our customers. As part of Team Thames, you’ll have the opportunity to sign up to support our customers on the frontline as an ambassador. Full training will be given for what is undoubtedly an incredibly rewarding experience. It’s also a great opportunity to learn more about our business, meet colleagues and earn some extra money along the way.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.