Programme & Portfolio Governance Lead

Airband Community Internet Ltd; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading telecommunications company is seeking a Programme & Portfolio Governance Lead in the Midlands. This role involves creating and overseeing a governance framework for the FWA expansion programme, ensuring effective communication across departments. Candidates should have a strong background in telecom governance and at least 5 years of experience in a PMO role. The position offers competitive pay up to £60,000 and hybrid working options with excellent benefits including generous leave and pension contributions.

Benefits

25 days paid leave, rising to 30

5% employer pension contribution

Employee discount platform

Free broadband

Healthcare and medical insurance

Cycle to work scheme

Qualifications

• Advanced knowledge in programme, project, and change management methodologies.
• Experience working in a fast-paced environment with proactive skills.
• Ability to manage conflicting priorities with excellent planning.

Responsibilities

• Establish governance frameworks for the FWA programme.
• Produce monthly and quarterly executive reports.
• Facilitate cross-functional communication and collaboration.

Education

Prince 2 accreditation

5+ years' experience at a senior level in PMO

Strong background in programme/portfolio governance

Job description

Job Title: Programme & Portfolio Governance Lead

Location: Midlands (Droitwich)

Job Type: Full-Time (40 hours per week) (Hybrid)

Salary: Up to £60,000 per annum

Job Summary

The Programme & Portfolio Governance Lead is responsible for establishing, maintaining, and continuously improving the governance framework that underpins planning and delivery across our FWA expansion programme. The role ensures that all initiatives, strategy, network rollout, platform development, commercial workstreams, and operational readiness are governed consistently, transparently, and effectively. This role provides cross-organisational oversight, enabling decision clarity, highlighting risk and delivery constraints, and ensuring alignment between Strategy & Planning, Build, Networks, Platforms, Finance, and Executive Leadership.

Responsibilities

Portfolio Governance & Controls

• Define and maintain the enterprise-wide governance framework for the FWA programme (standards, checkpoints, RAG, RAID, approvals).
• Establish portfolio management practices covering prioritisation, sequencing, resource demand, dependencies, and benefit tracking.
• Maintain a centralised view of the multi-year portfolio with transparency of progress, risks, and constraints.
• Ensure all workstreams follow consistent governance discipline and reporting cycles.

Executive Reporting & Decision Support

• Produce the monthly and quarterly executive portfolio packs with insights, recommendations, and risk signals.
• Provide clear decision options to the business leadership team.
• Ensure alignment with investment approvals, financial governance, and capacity constraints.

Programme Oversight

• Act as the governance lead for the FWA rollout, ensuring handshakes between different teams from plan & design to build to network operations.
• Track performance against strategic roadmaps, delivery milestones, and critical path.
• Drive cross-functional workshops to resolve blockers and clarify responsibilities.

Risk, Dependency & Change Management

• Maintain the enterprise RAID framework across all programmes and projects.
• Identify cross-functional risks—commercial, technical, build capacity, financial—and accelerate appropriately.
• Ensure all material programme changes follow structured impact assessment and approval.

Standards & Quality Assurance

• Define delivery documentation standards (programme charters, business cases, stage gates, KPIs).
• Run quality assurance reviews for major programmes (site deployment, platform initiatives, wholesale enablement).
• Ensure learnings, retrospectives, and continuous improvement are embedded.

Stakeholder Alignment & Communication

• Facilitate cross-functional steering groups and governance forums.
• Ensure transparent communication between team across the value chain.
• Support Strategy & Planning with programme-level insights informing sequencing and prioritisation.

Person Specification

• Advanced knowledge and practical understanding of programme, project and change management methodology, tools and techniques.
• Experience of doing and not just monitoring or implementing of processes. Be hands on, and have a strong, proactive practical and action-oriented outlook and who can work in a fast-paced environment.
• Demonstrable knowledge of managing in a KPI based target driven organisation to deliver repeatable quality outcomes.
• A role model, able to always demonstrates and uphold Airband’s values.
• Excellent planning and organisational skills, resilient with the ability to successfully manage conflicting priorities.
• Self-starter, able to take the lead and brings projects and tasks to completion.
• An eye for detail, focused on implementing robust controls and processes.
• Has tenacity with repeated and enduring efforts to overcome obstacles and/or to complete tasks.
• Pursues excellence in line with the organisation’s norms and values.

Essential

• Minimum of 5 years’ experience at a senior level in a PMO organisation within medium to large organisation.
• Prince 2 accreditation.
• Strong background in programme/portfolio governance within telecoms, digital infrastructure, or related industries.
• Understanding of network rollout, backhaul/network dependencies, and commercial delivery cycles.
• Proven experience establishing governance frameworks in scaling or transforming organisations.
• Data-driven, structured, and highly organised.
• Skilled facilitator across technical and executive stakeholders.
• Excellent written and verbal communication for board-level outputs.

Airband Benefits

• 25 days of paid leave a year rising to 30 plus bank holidays with service.
• 5% Airband pension plus a minimum 3% employee contribution.
• Customer referral bonus - a thank you for every customer you send our way.
• We offer hybrid working – a mix of working from home and in the office.
• Free Broadband – If you are in our coverage, you can benefit from free broadband with us!
• Cycle to work, Tech scheme, Healthcare and medical insurance. Dental care, and Health cash fund (dependent on the length of service)
• Airshare (employee discount platform) - discounts on everyday shopping, weekly groceries, holidays, the list is endless - save up to £1,000 a year!
• Refer a friend reward scheme.

Pre-employment checks

Please note that you are required to have the right to work in the UK and we request satisfactory references as part of our recruitment process. A DBS check may be required for a number of our roles, particularly those that are customer-facing. Also, a driving licence may be required for positions that require you to be out in the field as part of the role.

Recruitment agency support is not required at this time.