Project / Programme Manager

6 Months FTC - Hemel Hempstead

Hybrid Remote (2-3 days in office)

About Us:

Bourne Leisure is the largest and most successful privately-owned holiday business in the UK, with a group turnover of over 1.1bn, more than 17,500 employees, and 6,500 acres of Britain's best holiday locations.

The company was founded in the 1960s by Peter Harris, David Allen and John Cook and has been highly profitable since its launch, achieving profit growth year-on-year from 1964 to 2019.

Until 2000, Bourne Leisure's core business was owning and operating holiday parks, but it has since expanded its portfolio via acquisition. Most notably, Bourne Leisure acquired the holiday division of the Rank organisation, consisting of the Butlins and Warner Leisure brands alongside several large caravan parks. In 2022 Bourne sold Butlin's to focus on it's 2 core Brands so Bourne Leisure is therefore made up of two businesses, summarised below:
Haven Holidays: A chain of 40 caravan holiday parks aimed at the domestic staycation market
Warner Leisure: 17 country and coastal hotel resorts located in beauty spots across England and North Wales. All sites are "adults-only", allowing the business to uniquely cater to this demographic in its entertainment programme and F&B offering

Bourne Leisure's vision is to be the UK's most loved holiday and holiday home business, pledging to 'give our guests a great time with memories that last a lifetime'. Its values are integral to this mission and are shared across all three businesses:
Delight our guests
Where talent thrives
One great team
Safe and secure
Strive to be better

Bourne Leisure is particularly known for its friendly corporate culture and investing in its people, working to recruit and retain the best talent across all functions. This has cemented Bourne Leisure's reputation as one of the UK's best employers, featuring in the Sunday Times "25 Best Big Companies to Work For" list for seven years.

The role:

 We are seeking a motivated individual to join our team on a fixed term basis as a Project / Programme Manager.  

Reporting into the strategy director, the purpose of the role is to support effective delivery of a portfolio of strategic and operational change programmes across the company. The role will lead on developing and managing processes to monitor and report progress against programme execution, identifying and managing inter-dependencies and risks that may arise, and supporting the business in resolving issues that are preventing effective delivery.

This role will work closely with many senior stakeholders across the business, including Heads of Department and the Executive Team. The right applicant will therefore be able to build effective relationships across the business and have an acute awareness of how to build engagement and momentum behind the delivery of change.

You will be a Project or Programme Manager with a proven record of coordinating multiple stakeholders to deliver positive and effective change within an organisation.

Key activity of the role is to set up and lead the PMO activity of our strategic change programmes and will include:
Mapping our change programme activity plans into a strategy execution platform and managing its use (alongside service provider)
Identifying and managing issues and inter-dependencies with plans
Working with delivery leads to align and set up KPI tracking
Advising and supporting delivery leads in setting up effective working group governance processes
Developing reporting processes, and managing progress reporting
Proactively working with stakeholders to identify and unblock issues with execution
Creating and encouraging momentum behind the delivery of change

To be successful you would be/have:
Proactive & a self-starter
Ability to work both independently and in group environments
Ability to understand complex business / commercial issues while maintaining focus on the 'big picture'
Problem solving skills where issues may be complex
Adept at working through analysis of multiple options and using innovative thinking to devise solutions
A clear communicator (both written and verbal)
A demonstrable ability to build relationships and work with wide variety of senior stakeholders
Comfortable working with excel / online digital tools (detailed modelling not required)


We offer a positive and inclusive work environment and a competitive compensation package that includes benefits.

Bourne Leisure is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity within our organisation. We do not discriminate on the basis of any protected characteristic, including race, religion, colour, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status. We encourage you to bring your authentic self to work.