Associate Sponsor

Associate Sponsor

**Location**:
Manchester, GB

**Department Name**:
SC North West Programmes (115905) G1

**About Network Rail**:
Network Rail operates and maintains the railway infrastructure 24/7 365 days a year. To find out more about our people, visit - Our People.

Our ambition to be responsive to passengers and freight users drives us every day and we’re empowered to do the right thing for those who use the rail network. We actively challenge unsafe practices and take responsibility for addressing risks, resolving issues and protecting safety and wellbeing.

We’re passionate about great service and we ask ourselves, what can we do to put our passengers and freight users at the centre of everything we do? With this in mind, we pull together as one industry because we care about people and teamwork is key.

This is an exciting time to join Network Rail. We’re passionate about great service and commit to our service equation vision by “putting passengers first”. Performance, safety and getting the fundamental basics right, is something we strive for as well as asking ourselves - what can we do to put our passengers and freight users at the centre of everything we do?

You will be part of the NW&C Region which consist of three routes:

- North West
- Central
- West Coast South - and a regional team supporting Regional Major Programmes & Professional services.

To find out more about NW&C/us, visit - Who We Are.
For us, ‘Diversity' means recognising differences between people while valuing the contribution they make. ‘Inclusion’ means creating safe and welcoming workplaces with fair cultures that encourage innovative and fresh ways of thinking.

**Brief Description**:
This is an exciting opportunity to join the Manchester & North-West Transformation Programme team with three Associate Sponsor roles available. As an Associate Sponsor, you’ll develop an understanding and capability of the sponsor role through shadowing, managing, and supporting projects across the Manchester & North-West Transformation Programme. You’ll also drive the development and implementation of specific small/medium-sized schemes as directed by the lead sponsor.

The Manchester & North-West Transformation Programme is a major programme delivering £220m of investment over the next 3yrs. We have an exciting portfolio of projects currently comprising DfT and third party funded enhancements which will unlock capacity, train performance, and connectivity improvement benefits for the area, and include electrification, line of route upgrades and major station redevelopments.

This is an exciting time to be joining the team with the complex interfaces with HS2, Transpennine Route Upgrade, and the Integrated Rail Plan all driving forward. You will engage with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders across the industry, the local authorities and the local community and experience a broad range of activities that interface with different areas such as communications, strategic planning and project management.

**About the role (External)**:
**What will you be doing?**
- Work as part of the sponsor team to manage the development and implementation of specific schemes and work streams as directed by the lead sponsor.
- Support the interests of the funder, customer or stakeholder
- Actively participate in the remit process; review and comment on client, customer, and stakeholder requirements to test the viability of proposed schemes taking into account value for money, network availability and capacity for future development and whole life cost.
- Under direction, produce investment papers for small/medium-sized schemes and support the business case process.
- Provide input to the development of the initial project plan and budget; working with the lead sponsor and project manager to specify how the project will be delivered, expected milestones and associated timescales, risks and issues.
- Monitor progress on projects/programmes against agreed budgets, delivery plans and work programmes, challenge delivery partners as appropriate to correct adverse trends.
- Communicate and report project progress status to the lead sponsor, client, customer and stakeholders against defined and agreed milestones.
- Support the process of quantifying risk associated with the portfolio of projects. Work with the lead sponsor to devise mitigating actions and periodically review recovery progress.
- Participate in negotiations with customers and stakeholders on commercial and contractual terms in accordance with relevant corporate policy and strategy.
- Comply with the requirements of corporate investment regulations, other corporate governance and adhere to corporate processes, including those related to finance, legal and corporate affairs.

**In order to be successful in this role, we would like you to have/to be**:
**(Essential)**
- Experience in dealing with people at all levels
- Ability to communicate and articulate clearly an