Portfolio Planning Manager

Location: Newbury (Hybrid*)
Salary: Excellent basic salary plus bonus and Vodafone benefits
Hours: Full time 37.5 hours per week – Monday to Friday

*Hybrid - At Vodafone UK we believe that through collaboration and connection with our colleagues we can achieve great things. Our hybrid working approach allows our people to work both in the office and at home, providing the flexibility and resources you need to succeed in your role. We don't require you to be in on specific days; instead, we ask people to come into the office 2-3 days each week, on average 8 days a month. Our “Office in a Box” home working kit will provide you with everything you need, no matter where you are.

At Vodafone UK, diversity isn’t just a buzzword, it is core to who we are as a company. We’re proud to be certified as a Great Place to Work and are committed to driving inclusion for all; creating a workplace that is fully representative of the communities and customers we serve.

What you’ll do

The purpose of the Digital, Data and Transformation team is to drive, influence & effectively deliver transformational change to benefit the UK Business Unit to support profitable growth by applying best practice within a framework of flexible principles. The Portfolio Planning Manager is responsible for overseeing the health of the portfolio, ensuring that project deliveries are monitored effectively, and managing the end-to-end demand pipeline. This role ensures visibility of portfolio progress, facilitates resource allocation, and identifies, captures, and resolves risks and issues at a portfolio level. The Portfolio Planning Manager plays a critical role in aligning the portfolio with strategic objectives, helping articulate value chains, and driving benefits realisation through structured reporting.

• Portfolio Health Management: Conduct regular portfolio health reviews, assessing delivery status, and ensuring adherence to project timelines, budgets, and scope.
• Delivery Monitoring: Ensure consistent tracking of delivery progress across all initiatives within the portfolio, identifying bottlenecks and recommending corrective actions.
• Demand Pipeline Management: Manage the end-to-end demand pipeline, ensuring clear visibility of upcoming initiatives, dependencies, and their alignment with resource capacity.
• Resource Allocation: Work with cross-functional teams to ensure the appropriate allocation of resources to meet portfolio demands, optimising utilisation and avoiding conflicts.
• Risk and Issue Management: Identify risks and issues at the portfolio level, track them, and work with stakeholders to implement mitigation or resolution strategies.
• Value Chain Understanding and Development: Build and refine value chains across the portfolio to ensure all stages contribute to overall value creation.
• KPI Implementation: Define and implement Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of the value chain.
• Benefits Realisation: Capture, track, and report on benefits realisation across the portfolio, ensuring that the anticipated value from projects and initiatives is being achieved.
• Stakeholder Communication: Provide regular reports and updates to senior management and key stakeholders on portfolio status, potential risks, and progress towards strategic goals.
• Process Improvement: Continuously evaluate and enhance portfolio management processes, ensuring the effective governance and alignment of projects to organisational priorities.

Who you are:

• Demonstratable understanding of project delivery processes and experience in benefits tracking, value chain analysis.
• Proficient MS Excel knowledge including formulas, Excel VBA Macro knowledge would be an advantage.
• Experience of implementing process change or improvement within an organisation.
• Self-motivated, strong communication skills, and ability to actively build professional relationships with people internally and externally to get your job done.
• Experience in the Telecoms/IT industry is beneficial.
• PMO or Project Management background preferred.
• University degree or an extensive amount of practical knowledge gained through experience.
• Proficient in MS product suite including Excel, PowerPoint, and Project.
• MS Azure Dev Ops.

What we offer

We believe that taking care of our employees is the key to their success. That is why we offer an excellent remuneration and bonus package with up to 28 days holiday entitlement, in addition to bank holidays and paid leave for charity projects. We offer an extensive benefits package that can be tailored to suit you and your family, including employee discounts, retail vouchers, pension plan and share schemes. We take pride in our commitment to supporting you at every stage of your career by providing top of the range learning and development tools, market leading parental leave policies and an innovative Reconnect programme for people who have taken a career break.

Together we can

Vodafone UK are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and all offers of employment for this role are subject to background checks, including criminal (DBS) and financial checks to meet the regulators standards.

If you require any reasonable adjustments or have an accessibility request as part of your recruitment journey, for example, extended time or breaks in between online assessments, a sign language interpreter, or assistive technology, please refer to the Accessibility section of our Careers website for guidance.

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