Senior Project Manager / Contracts Manager

This is a senior delivery role for an experienced Project Manager ready to step into wider Contracts Management responsibility over time.

Salary: Dependent on experience
Position: Permanent
Location: 11 Nuffield Road, Cambridge

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Closing Date: June 3, 2026

Benefits:

25 days annual leave + birthday leave
Enhanced maternity/paternity pay
Cycle to Work & Car Leasing Schemes
Healthcare Cash Plan
Paid volunteering day
Pension matching
Holiday buy scheme
Referral rewards

Position Full Details:

This is a senior delivery role for an experienced Project Manager ready to step into wider Contracts Management responsibility over time. You will lead complex fit-out and workplace projects end-to-end, owning:

Programme certainty
Quality and health & safety
Client experience
Commercial performance

As you establish credibility, you will take on broader responsibility across multiple projects — strengthening contract discipline, change control, and risk visibility across the business.

What you’ll be doing

Leading projects from mobilisation through to completion with predictable, well-controlled outcomes
Driving programme, quality and site standards through disciplined delivery
Protecting margin through strong commercial awareness and structured change control
Managing client relationships with professionalism and clarity
Leading Site Managers and supply chain partners to deliver consistently high standards
Identifying risks early and escalating with clear, evidence-led solutions

About you:

Skills & Attributes

Organised and methodical: clear plans, clean actions, finishing what you start.
Calm under pressure: escalates with facts and options, not emotion.
Firm and fair communicator: can challenge and coach without creating friction.
Improvement mindset: simplifies, standardises and removes repeat failure points

About COEL:

COEL is a Cambridge-based commercial design and build, fit-out and workplace delivery business delivering high-performing spaces across the region. We combine professional delivery with strong client relationships and are building a business defined by:

Clear accountability and high standards
Simple, disciplined processes that people actually follow
A high-trust, high-performance culture

At COEL, we expect people to:

Own outcomes, not excuses
Work with evidence, not opinion
Continuously improve how we deliver projects

We are actively strengthening our governance, systems and delivery capability – creating a business where good people can do their best work and progress into senior leadership roles.

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