Senior Complex Programme Manager

IBM
IBM

London, UK

Posted on Oct 28, 2026
Introduction

A career in IBM Consulting is built on long-term client relationships and close collaboration worldwide. You’ll work with leading companies across industries, helping them shape their hybrid cloud and AI journeys. With support from our strategic partners, robust IBM technology, and Red Hat, you’ll have the tools to drive meaningful change and accelerate client impact. At IBM Consulting, curiosity fuels success. You’ll be encouraged to challenge the norm, explore new ideas, and create innovative solutions that deliver real results. Our culture of growth and empathy focuses on your long-term career development while valuing your unique skills and experiences.

Your role and responsibilities

As a Complex Project Manager for Enterprise Transformation, you will lead some of IBM's most challenging technology and software engineering programmes, helping clients navigate large-scale transformation initiatives that combine business change, modern engineering practices, cloud platforms, data, AI, cybersecurity, and enterprise applications.

This role is suited to individuals who thrive in complexity. You'll be comfortable operating in environments where requirements evolve, priorities shift, and the path to delivery is not always clearly defined. Rather than relying solely on process and governance, you'll bring the ability to influence senior stakeholders, align diverse teams, and create clarity amid uncertainty.

Working closely with client executives, engineering leaders, architects, product teams, and business stakeholders, you will be responsible for delivering outcomes across interconnected programmes that often span multiple technologies, suppliers, and organisational boundaries. You'll balance commercial objectives, technical constraints, delivery risks, and organisational priorities while maintaining momentum and stakeholder confidence.

You'll have experience delivering large-scale software engineering or technology transformation programmes and understand the challenges associated with integrating modern digital platforms with legacy enterprise environments. You will have successfully managed programmes involving multiple stakeholder groups with competing priorities, complex dependencies, and changing business requirements.

We're looking for someone who has led organisations through ambiguity, whether stabilising challenged programmes, driving recovery initiatives, or delivering in environments where scope, requirements, and operating models continued to evolve throughout the lifecycle. You will be comfortable making decisions with incomplete information, establishing adaptive governance structures, and ensuring the right balance between control, flexibility, and delivery pace.

Success in this role requires the ability to engage at executive level, build trusted client relationships, and lead cross-functional teams through influence rather than authority. You will be a strong communicator who can translate between business and technical audiences, ensuring alignment across engineering, architecture, product, operations, and leadership teams.

The ideal candidate will bring experience delivering programmes characterised by unpredictability, interconnected challenges, and significant organisational complexity, with a proven ability to create structure, manage risk, and deliver value in some of the most demanding transformation environments.

Required education
None
Preferred education
Bachelor's Degree
Required technical and professional expertise

  • Proven experience leading large-scale enterprise transformation, software engineering, or technology modernisation programmes within complex client environments.

  • Strong understanding of software engineering, cloud technologies, DevOps, enterprise architecture, data and AI delivery, with the ability to engage credibly with senior technical and engineering leaders.

  • Demonstrated ability to operate effectively at executive stakeholder level, influencing strategic decisions and building trusted relationships across client and IBM leadership teams.

  • Experience successfully delivering programmes in highly ambiguous environments where requirements, scope, priorities, and solutions evolve throughout the delivery lifecycle.

  • Proven track record of leading programme recovery initiatives, stabilising challenged projects, and restoring stakeholder confidence while driving programmes back to successful delivery.

  • Ability to balance commercial, technical, organisational, and contractual considerations, making informed decisions that support both client outcomes and business objectives.

  • Experience establishing and adapting governance frameworks within rapidly changing environments, ensuring appropriate oversight without creating unnecessary delivery constraints.

  • Strong leadership skills with the ability to lead cross-functional teams through influence, collaboration, and stakeholder alignment rather than relying solely on direct authority or process control.

  • Extensive experience managing multiple stakeholder groups with competing priorities, conflicting objectives, and complex organisational dynamics.

  • Experience delivering programmes involving integration between legacy enterprise systems and modern cloud-native, digital, or AI-enabled platforms.

  • Proven ability to manage large-scale programmes with significant interdependencies, uncertainty, and interconnected technical and business challenges.

  • Strong risk management capability, including the identification, assessment, communication, and mitigation of commercial, technical, delivery, and organisational risks.

  • Experience coordinating delivery across diverse teams including software engineering, architecture, product management, operations, cybersecurity, and business transformation functions.

  • Exceptional communication, negotiation, and influencing skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into meaningful business outcomes for senior stakeholders.

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Proficiency in Emerging Technologies: Experience with various emerging technologies related to client needs, including technical solutions and innovative thinking. Ability to leverage these technologies to deliver successful solutions for intricate IT, business, and client requirements.

• Knowledge of Business Outsourcing: Familiarity with managing complex business outsourcing contracts, including analyzing business and IT challenges, and advising on large or complex engagements.

• Expertise in Project Methodologies: Experience with various project management methodologies, including the ability to apply strategic innovative thinking and manage complex programs and projects.

ABOUT BUSINESS UNIT

IBM Consulting is IBM’s consulting and global professional services business, with market leading capabilities in business and technology transformation. With deep expertise in many industries, we offer strategy, experience, technology, and operations services to many of the most innovative and valuable companies in the world. Our people are focused on accelerating our clients’ businesses through the power of collaboration. We believe in the power of technology responsibly used to help people, partners and the planet.

YOUR LIFE @ IBM

In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

ABOUT IBM

IBM’s greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.

Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we’re also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.

At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it’s time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.

IBM is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS

IBM wants you to bring your whole self to work and for you this might mean the ability to work flexibly. If you are interested in a flexible working pattern, please talk to our recruitment team to find out if this is possible in the current working environment.

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