Project Manager

The Senior Project Manager provides project leadership and coordination for Zinc projects. The post-holder is responsible for managing day-to-day delivery across workstreams, maintaining delivery discipline, tracking timelines, budgets, risks, deliverables, compliance, and reporting, and coordinating across internal teams, partners, and clients to ensure activities are delivered to a high standard, on time, and within budget. The Senior Project Manager represents Zinc professionally in client meetings and partner engagements, contributes credible technical and delivery insight, and escalates strategic, contractual, commercial, or high-stakes issues to the Project Director or designated programme lead with clear recommendations. 

You must currently hold active UK Government Security Check (SC) Clearance.

Core Responsibilities 

Project Delivery and Quality Assurance 

• Manage and coordinate the day-to-day delivery of project activities, translating strategic and client requirements into practical workplans, activity trackers, and deliverable schedules, and ensuring alignment with programme strategy, deadlines, budget, and quality standards. 

• Oversee project timelines, milestones, budgets, and deliverables, tracking progress and ensuring internal, client, and donor requirements are met. 

• Lead regular client and donor reporting, including quarterly and annual reports, collating evidence of results, risks, adaptation, and learning for internal reviews and client-facing updates, in coordination with MEL and other teams. 

• Maintain project documentation and compliance records, including deliverables, decision logs, risk trackers, partner records, approvals, and evidence of progress, ensuring lessons learned are properly captured. 

• Support quality assurance of client-facing reports, deliverables, and communications before senior review and sign-off, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and delivery quality. 

Client, Partner and Stakeholder Leadership 

• Manage day-to-day client, partner, and stakeholder engagement, ensuring clarity on responsibilities, expectations, deadlines, deliverables, and follow-up actions. 

• Act as a key point of contact for project logistics and coordination with partners and internal teams. 

• Represent Zinc professionally in client meetings and partner engagements, building trusted operational relationships and escalating strategic or high-risk matters to the Project Director. 

• Prepare briefs, meeting notes, and follow-up materials for client, partner, and high-level stakeholder engagements. 

• Ensure external engagement reflects Zinc Network's values and sustains client and partner confidence through disciplined delivery, responsive coordination, and professional representation, reinforcing Zinc's reputation for quality, integrity, and responsible delivery. 

Commercial, Contractual and Risk Management 

• Track project budgets and financial information in coordination with the Project Director, finance, and operations colleagues, helping ensure activities remain within agreed budgets. 

• Support operations team members in procurement, contracting partner logistics, travel arrangements, and other operational processes in line with Zinc and donor requirements. 

• Identify safeguarding, security, or reputational risks early and propose practical mitigations, integrating them into project risk management processes. 

• Understand the commercial and contractual requirements governing each project, including scope, deliverables, invoicing, procurement, and wider compliance. 

• Escalate material budget, compliance, procurement, partner-performance, or delivery issues to the Project Director with clear evidence and recommended next steps. 

People Leadership and Team Integration 

• Coordinate the day-to-day work of multidisciplinary project teams and external partners, ensuring colleagues understand priorities, responsibilities, deadlines, and dependencies. 

• Enable effective collaboration between researchers, analysts, strategists, creatives, MEL specialists, operations staff, technical specialists, and regional partners. 

• Provide task guidance, coaching, and quality feedback to junior project staff or partner focal points where assigned. 

• Identify resourcing pressures, workload risks, performance concerns, or coordination barriers and escalate them to the Project Director with proposed solutions. 

Programme Strategy, Learning and Impact 

• Contribute to written strategy documents, research reports, project updates, and other programme documentation as required. 

• Provide operational insight and, where relevant, technical guidance on partner activities such as research, publications, campaigns, journalistic investigations, policy development, and civil society engagement. 

• Use progress data, partner feedback, audience insight, contextual analysis, and lessons learned to improve implementation and support evidence-based decision-making. 

• Support the integration of research, strategy, creative, MEL, and partner insights so that programme activities reinforce one another and remain focused on measurable change. 

Business Growth 

• Contribute to project expansion, adaptation, and follow-on activity development by identifying delivery insights, client needs, partner opportunities, and lessons from implementation. 

• Support the Project Director and senior leadership with inputs to proposal sections, programme extensions, budgets, workplans, case studies, and opportunity development where relevant. 

• Capture project learning, evidence, and delivery examples that can support future business development and Zinc's wider reputation in strategic communications and information integrity. 

• Use external engagements to identify emerging opportunities, risks, and stakeholder priorities, and feed relevant intelligence back to the Project Director and business-growth leads. 

Key Outcomes 

• Projects are delivered on time, within budget, and to agreed quality standards, with risks and issues identified and escalated before they affect delivery. 

• Clients and partners experience clear, responsive coordination and consistently well-prepared reporting and documentation. 

• Project teams work with clear priorities and dependencies, enabling smooth collaboration across service lines and partners. 

• Project learning and evidence are captured and feed into reporting, adaptation, and future proposals. 

• The Project Director has early, well-evidenced visibility of delivery, budget, and risk issues that require senior decision-making. 

Candidates who receive a job offer will be required to: 

• Disclose any previous disciplinary action resulting from a substantiated safeguarding or workplace investigation, including any breaches involving trafficking-related activities. 

• Undergo background checks including employment verification, sexual offender registry check (where available), identity confirmation, and anti-terrorism vetting. 

• Zinc Network is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce. We welcome applications from people of all professional, cultural, and personal backgrounds. 

Requirements

Essential 

• You must currently hold active UK Government Security Check (SC) Clearance.

• Bachelor's or master's degree, or equivalent experience, in international development, communications, international relations, journalism, regional studies, social sciences, security studies, behavioural science, or another relevant field. 

• Proven ability to manage complex, multi-stakeholder projects in fast-paced, international environments. 

• Strong understanding of project delivery cycles, including planning, implementation, reporting, compliance, performance tracking, and learning. 

• Excellent organisational, administrative, logistics, documentation, and budget-tracking skills, with close attention to detail. 

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including experience preparing reports, briefs, meeting notes, client-facing documentation, and project updates. 

• AI-first mindset, with confidence using digital tools and AI-powered systems to enhance efficiency, coordination, analysis, and documentation. 

• Ability to work effectively under pressure, adapt to changing priorities, and maintain sound judgement in sensitive or rapidly evolving contexts. 

Desirable 

• Technical or language skills relevant to Zinc projects 

• Awareness of socio-political developments, information integrity challenges, media literacy issues, and strategic communications trends relevant to programme contexts.

Desired start date: 01/10/2026

Fixed Term Contract End Date: 31/03/2029

Benefits

Zinc Network is committed to providing a comprehensive benefits package that supports your wellbeing, work-life balance, and professional development. Below is a complete overview of the benefits available to you. 

• Competitive Pension Scheme 

•  Season Ticket Loan 

• Private Healthcare 

• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) 

• Free Eye Test Vouchers 

• Free Daily Breakfast 

• Hybrid Working 

• Flexible Working Hours 

• Cycle to Work Scheme 

Annual Leave Entitlement 

• 25 days annual leave per year (pro-rata for part-time employees) 

• 8 UK bank holidays (pro-rata for part-time employees)