Role Purpose

The Senior Recovery Manager, working with the Project/Programme manager and Delivery Leads from within the company Subject Matter Experts (SME) pool, is responsible for stabilising, recovering, and, successfully delivering troubled or underperforming IT-led programmes and projects.

The role focuses on identifying root causes of delivery failure using Endava Early Warning Indicator (EWIs) data built into reporting mechanisms, implementing corrective actions, restoring stakeholder confidence, and driving projects back to agreed scope, schedule, budget, and/or quality outcomes.

The role is also responsible for leveraging AI-enabled delivery assurance and intelligent recovery tooling to accelerate diagnosis, improve recovery decision quality, and identifying emerging delivery risks to enhance recovery execution effectiveness.

The role supports the VMO in strengthening delivery confidence by applying consistent governance, controls, recovery playbooks, and Early Warning Indicators insights.

This role requires strong leadership, executive stakeholder management, delivery governance expertise, and deep experience in complex IT transformation initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

Working with the owning project/programme manager to ensure rigorous recovery practices are implemented and adhered to in addition to the following:

Project Recovery & Stabilisation

• Lead recovery activities for critical IT programmes and projects experiencing delivery, budget, governance, or operational challenges.
• Perform rapid project health assessments, using the Value Management Office (VMO) EWI framework, identifying root causes of failure or underperformance.
• Lead development of, and utilise, AI-assisted analysis techniques to identify delivery patterns, emerging risks, dependency failures, stakeholder sentiment indicators, and probable root causes across project data, governance artefacts, financial reporting, and operational metrics.”
• Develop and execute comprehensive recovery plans utilising defined recovery playbooks with clear milestones, risk mitigation strategies, and governance controls.
• Re-establish delivery discipline, accountability, and reporting mechanisms.
• Establish a company wide pool of SME’s to be brought into project/programme recovery activities as necessary.

Delivery Leadership

• Take operational leadership of recovery engagements.
• Drive prioritisation and decision-making across business and technology stakeholders.
• Ensure alignment between project objectives, business outcomes, and technical delivery capabilities.
• Manage complex dependencies across multiple workstreams and suppliers.

Governance & Controls

• Apply the VMO Early Warning Indicator framework to assess delivery health, identify control weaknesses, and trigger timely intervention or recovery action.
• Define and embed fit-for-purpose recovery governance, including recovery boards, cadence, decision forums, escalation paths, and executive reporting.
• Ensure recovery plans are governed through clear entry and exit criteria, measurable recovery milestones, ownership, and evidence-based progress tracking.
• Ensure projects comply with Strategic Deal delivery standards, VMO assurance expectations, regulatory requirements, audit commitments, and client governance obligations.
• Capture governance and control lessons from recovery engagements and feed them back into the VMO delivery assurance framework.

Stakeholder Management

• Build credibility and confidence with senior executives, sponsors, and delivery teams.
• Provide transparent and accurate reporting, recovery progress, and forecast outcomes.
• Facilitate difficult discussions and negotiate resolutions across conflicting stakeholder priorities.

Commercial & Financial Oversight

• Support the VMO, Project/Programme Manager, and Finance teams in identifying financial risks, recovery trade-offs, and areas requiring executive decision.
• Ensure recovery plans reflect agreed budget constraints, commercial assumptions, funding decisions, and cost-control measures.
• Escalate commercial or financial constraints that may affect recovery outcomes, delivery confidence, or stakeholder commitments.

Team Leadership

• Coach and mentor programme managers, project managers, and delivery teams.
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and delivery excellence.
• Lead cross-functional teams in high-pressure environments.

Continuous Improvement

• Capture lessons learned from recovery engagements.
• Recommend improvements to delivery frameworks, governance models, organisational project management maturity and operating models.
• Contribute to enterprise transformation and delivery capability development.

Key Success Metrics

• Successful stabilisation and recovery of failing or underperforming projects/programmes.
• Delivery performance restored against agreed revised scope, milestones, budget, quality, risk position and strategic objectives.
• Improved delivery confidence, evidenced through reduction in critical risks, issues, escalations, and unresolved dependencies.
• Recovery actions completed within agreed timeframes, with clear ownership and measurable outcomes.
• Improved accuracy, transparency, and evidence base of project status reporting, aligned to VMO reporting standards.
• Recovery governance operating effectively, with timely decisions, clear escalation routes, and active stakeholder engagement.

Experience

• 10+ years of experience in programme and project delivery within IT and digital transformation environments.
• Significant experience recovering complex, high-risk, or failing projects.
• Proven track record managing large-scale IT initiatives such as:
  • ERP implementations
  • Cloud migrations
  • Infrastructure transformations
  • Cybersecurity programmes
  • Application modernisation
  • Digital transformation
• Experience operating at executive and board stakeholder level.
• Strong vendor and commercial management experience.
• Experience in matrix-managed and multi-supplier environments.

Essential Skills and Core Competencies

Leadership

• Strong crisis leadership and decision-making capability.
• Ability to lead under pressure and navigate ambiguity.
• Influencing and negotiation skills at senior executive level.

Delivery & Recovery Expertise

• Advanced programme and project management capability.
• Deep understanding of delivery methodologies:
  • Agile
  • Waterfall
  • Hybrid delivery models
• Strong risk and issue management expertise.

Communication

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Executive-level reporting and presentation capability.
• Credible and professional engagement with senior client personel
• Ability to simplify complex technical and delivery issues for business stakeholders.

Analytical Skills

• Strong problem-solving and root cause analysis capability.
• Systemic thinking and ability to consider problems holistically understanding cause and effect dynamics
• Financial and commercial acumen.
• Data-driven decision making.

Desirable

AI-Enabled Delivery Assurance

• Identify opportunities to apply AI-enabled assurance and recovery techniques
• Exposure to, or experience applying, AI-enabled tooling to programme assurance, recovery analysis, governance reporting, or delivery forecasting.
• Ability to critically interpret AI-generated insights and translate into actionable recovery decisions.
• Understanding of responsible AI governance, considerations within programme delivery environments.

Essential

• Degree level education or alternative in Information Technology, Business, Engineering, or related field.
• PRINCE2 Practitioner, PMP, MSP, or equivalent certification.
• Significant demonstrable IT project/programme recovery success

Desirable

• Agile certifications (SAFe, Scrum, AgilePM).
• ITIL certification.
• Change management qualification (Prosci, APMG, etc.).
• Knowledge and adoption of AI driven recovery process and procedures

Personal Attributes

• Resilient and calm under pressure.
• Credible and professional at C-Suite level
• Highly accountable and outcome-oriented.
• Strong relationship builder.
• Pragmatic and commercially aware.
• Able to challenge constructively and drive difficult decisions.

Seniority Indicators

This is a senior leadership role requiring:

• Experience managing multi-million-pound programmes
• Direct engagement with C-suite stakeholders
• Responsibility for strategic delivery outcomes
• Authority to intervene in failing delivery organisations and programmes

At Endava, we’re committed to creating an open, inclusive, and respectful environment where everyone feels safe, valued, and empowered to be their best. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives—because we know that inclusive teams help us deliver smarter, more innovative solutions for our customers. Hiring decisions are based on merit, skills, qualifications, and potential. If you need adjustments or support during the recruitment process, please let us know.