Project Manager

Build Something That Matters

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council has made a significant and deliberate investment in children’s services. The Children in Care Sufficiency Strategy 2026-2030 is a Cabinet-approved, four-year programme designed to change how Barnsley plans for, commissions and delivers provision for children in care and children with special educational needs and disabilities. It’s funded, it’s live, and it’s already delivering.

The strategy works across three pillars: reducing avoidable entry into care, stabilising placements for vulnerable adolescents, and strengthening how the Council commissions and directly provides residential and specialist care. The interventions it funds include Reset Home, Mockingbird constellation fostering, a new Vulnerable Adolescent Pathway, a Reunification Fund, a strengthened kinship offer, and Barnsley’s own internal residential homes.

This sits alongside one of the most significant periods of national reform in children’s social care and SEND in a generation. Barnsley has chosen to get ahead of that, investing in real change rather than waiting to react.

The workforce that delivers this will grow alongside the programme. The strategy sets out additional staffing capacity across specialist intervention services, the Adolescent Pathway, commissioning and the development and operation of internal residential provision. Some of those roles are in development and will be advertised as the programme progresses.

The five roles we’re recruiting to now are the Programme Management Office: the team that sits at the centre of all three pillars, keeps the programme on track, maintains the evidence base, and provides the governance and assurance infrastructure that makes everything else possible.

If you want to be part of building something that genuinely changes outcomes for children in Barnsley, we’d like to hear from you.

Project Manager

The programme runs across three pillars with multiple interdependent workstreams, each with its own milestones, risks and delivery partners. The Project Manager’s job is to make sure the delivery infrastructure holds.

You’ll report to the Head of Programme Management Office, but the expectation is that you will lead project management across assigned workstreams, coordinate resources, maintain risk and issues logs, monitor budgets and produce reports and presentations for senior audiences. You’ll work within the programme’s gateway framework, making sure that milestone evidence is in place before authority to proceed is granted at each stage.

You’ll have significant experience managing complex change projects in a large organisation, strong knowledge of programme and project management frameworks, and the ability to advise at all levels of seniority. Experience in a children’s services, health or social care context is an advantage. Analytical skills and excellent written communication are as important in this role as the mechanics of project planning.

This is a hands-on delivery role. Organised, methodical, and comfortable working at pace across multiple priorities simultaneously. You’ll be a key part of a small, close-knit team where everyone’s contribution is visible and valued.

For further information please visit: https://www.barnsley.gov.uk/services/jobs/childrens-services-roles/