FAAM Mid-life Upgrade Project Manager

Do you have experience of working on complex projects in an engineering, technical, or science environment?

Do you have experience of managing external stakeholders and relationships?

Would you like to join a world leading national science and technology research centre dedicated to atmospheric science?

The FAAM Airborne Laboratory is a unique, highly modified BAE-146 4-engine jet aircraft adapted to carry a highly specialised science payload dedicated to supporting UK atmospheric science researchers and users of atmospheric science data. FAAM provides a specially adapted research aircraft, managed by a unique team of scientists, engineers, flight technicians and project managers forming a complete package of support for the scientific community. The capabilities are extensively reliant on state-of-the-art scientific instrumentation, often uniquely customised for use on the FAAM aircraft, which is deployed throughout the world.

The FAAM aircraft is owned by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and is the principal large atmospheric research aircraft providing services to atmospheric science researchers, UK government and other stakeholders. It is primarily funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), supporting numerous NERC research programmes and projects.

FAAM's measurement and operational capabilities are continually evolving, and management of this modification process has to be carried out effectively, against both time and budget constraints. An exciting new project has been developed called the FAAM Mid-Life Upgrade (MLU) with the aim of delivering a range of upgrades and enhancements to the scientific capabilities of the aircraft, its measurement capabilities and its research impact, extending its useful life by at least 20 years.

The MLU is an ambitious 4-5 year project to rebuild significant parts of the aircraft systems and to carry out a comprehensive upgrading of the aircraft's scientific capability. A budget of up to £50m is expected. Successful delivery will require working closely with major stakeholders, including BAE Systems as aircraft Design Authority, the aircraft scientific user community, providers of scientific instrumentation, the aircraft operator Airtask and the organisation contracted to carry out engineering work. The entire project will comprise several hundreds of individual aircraft modifications.

The MLU Project Manager will be central to the process of delivering the MLU. The role requires a skilled project manager, who will provide the day to day organisation of the project, working closely with the design authority's project management team and with the FAAM MLU Project Director.

The post allows for continuous professional development, with the expectation that a model of 70/20/10 will be followed, with 70% learning on the job, 20% learning from others and the time for 10% learning through external education work being available. The successful candidate will also contribute to developing the project management skills of FAAM team colleagues, acting as mentor as required. Similar scale infrastructure projects linked to NERC and FAAM include major NERC ship projects, Antarctic logistics and other BAE Systems projects within the 146/RJ fleet.

The job is expected to be based at FAAM's home base at Cranfield University in Bedfordshire. However flexible working arrangements will be available that include home working. There may be a requirement to travel, e.g. to stakeholder premises.

To explore the post further or for any queries you may have, please contact:

Mr Stephen Devereau, FAAM MLU Project Director

Email: steve.devereau@faam.ac.uk