Portfolio Development & Benefits Manager

Summary   Historic England is the public organisation that brings new life to heritage to build a better future for every place and everyone.  Historic England has a fantastic opportunity for you to join us as our Portfolio Development & Benefits Manager.  This is a full time, permanent contract position.  The location of this role is either York, Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, Cambridge, Swindon, Bristol or Portsmouth, inclusive with hybrid working. We will consider remote working where you are based from home. We offer a wide benefits package including a competitive defined benefit pension scheme to which we make 28.97% employer contributions, a generous 28 days holiday, corporate discounts, free entry into English Heritage sites across the country and development opportunities to ensure you achieve your goals.  To view our full range of benefits please follow the link here.  What you will be doing   As a key member of the Portfolio Development and Delivery Team (Portfolio), you will be responsible for developing and managing the portfolio definition cycle at Historic England, from initial triage of new business or other opportunities and business case coordination, to benefits identification, management and realisation, ensuring a consistent and fit-for-purpose approach to benefits management.  You will support Historic England as it progresses towards compliance with the Government Functional Standard GovS002 Project Delivery and will play a fundamental role in the creation of an organisation-wide delivery pipeline to underpin our Strategic Plan.  You will develop a suite of standards and processes, and provide advice and guidance, to embed best practice for benefits management within the portfolio.  You will be responsible for reporting on portfolio-level benefits realisation and for managing mid- and post-implementation reviews to compare benefits realised to benefits forecast.  You will work collaboratively and proactively, intervening early where targets are off track to ensure steps are taken to minimise risk to the organisation.  Who we are looking for   A confident and highly capable portfolio, programme or project professional with strong knowledge of Treasury Green Book business case development, ideally supported by a Better Business Cases™ qualification, and a solid understanding of benefits management and realisation within complex change environments.   The successful candidate will bring proven experience of leading and influencing stakeholders, navigating ambiguity and differing levels of organisational knowledge.  They will be an effective strategic thinker and problem solver, able to work collaboratively at pace across multiple priorities. With excellent analytical and communication skills, they will be confident using digital tools to support decision-making and delivery.   Please note your application will be scored and assessed against the above criteria.  We are an equal opportunity employer which values diversity and inclusion. If you have a disability or neurodiversity, we would be happy to discuss reasonable adjustments to the job with you. Having won the Gold Award from MIND for workplace wellbeing in seven consecutive years, we also recognise the importance of a healthy work-life balance.  We are an inclusive employer and believe that flexible working options are for everyone. We want to make sure our working arrangements don’t prevent anyone from joining us because of their personal circumstances. We also want to provide you with the best balance in your home and work life that we can.  We are open to considering options including job sharing, part-time working, compressed hours working and different working locations, including hybrid working. Please visit our jobs pages or contact us to find out more.  Why work for Historic England   We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. Diversity helps us to perform better and attract more people to support our work. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds.  We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and candidates with disabilities as they are underrepresented within Historic England at this level.  Historic England wants all of our candidates to shine in the recruitment process. Please tell us what we can do to make sure you can show us your very best self. You can contact us by email at [email removed - click apply for more details] if you have any recruitment queries.   At Historic England we use a hiring system called Applied. Applied is a behavioural science-backed recruitment platform that reduces bias, improves quality of hire and increases diversity. We do not use CV application for the majority of our hiring processes. You will answer a selection of questions that allow our hiring teams to test your skills and suitability for the role.  At Historic England, we value the expertise and individuality each candidate brings and want to hear about this in your own words. If you require the use or AI tools or other resources to support your application, we ask that all information is factually accurate, original, and reflects your own experience. To best represent yourself, we encourage you to write in your own words and use AI-generated content only as inspiration—not as direct input.  Provisional interview dates: between 4th – 6th August 2026