When our values align, there's no limit to what we can achieve.
At Parexel, we all share the same goal - to improve the world's health. From clinical trials to regulatory, consulting, and market access, every clinical development solution we provide is underpinned by something special - a deep conviction in what we do.
Each of us, no matter what we do at Parexel, contributes to the development of a therapy that ultimately will benefit a patient. We take our work personally, we do it with empathy and we're committed to making a difference.
Parexel is in the business of improving the world’s health. We do this by providing a suite of biopharmaceutical services that help clients across the globe transform scientific discoveries into new treatments. We believe in our values, Patients First, Quality, Respect, Empowerment & Accountability.
This role will work within our innovative Data & Technology group that continues to evolve to meet business needs, fuel Parexel's growth and enable improved support for stakeholders, including customers and ultimately patients, who will benefit from Parexel's integrated processes and systems.
This role will be based in the UK and can be fully home based and remote working anywhere in the UK only.
As the Principal IT Project Manager you will be accountable for the end-to-end delivery of technology projects that are of critical importance and/or high complexity, ensuring predictable execution, strong governance, and measurable business outcomes.
This role will lead cross-functional delivery teams in a matrix environment, applying expert project management discipline to manage scope, schedule, budget, risks, dependencies, and stakeholder expectations.
You will operate with a high degree of autonomy, provide delivery assurance for key initiatives, and mentor other Project Managers through coaching, standards adoption, and escalation support.
In this role you will provide:
Delivery Leadership for Critical & Complex Technology Projects
Lead the full project lifecycle for critical and/or highly complex technology initiatives, ensuring delivery to agreed scope, timelines, budgets, and quality outcomes.
Establish and maintain integrated delivery plans, milestone tracking, delivery governance cadence, and execution discipline across multi-team workstreams.
Drive alignment across business and technology stakeholders to achieve outcomes, manage trade-offs, and resolve delivery blockers quickly and transparently.
Stakeholder Management, Governance & Executive Communication
Act as the primary delivery point of contact for senior stakeholders, providing clear status, forecasting, decision points, and recommendations.
Chair and run project governance forums (e.g., steering, working groups), ensuring risks, issues, scope changes, and dependencies are surfaced early and managed through to resolution.
Manage stakeholder expectations through structured communications, change control, and transparent reporting, including executive-ready updates on progress, risk posture, and delivery impacts
Delivery Assurance & Risk / Dependency Management
Proactively manage delivery risk by identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks, issues, and cross-project dependencies; implement recovery plans where required.
Apply expert judgement to anticipate delivery failure modes (capacity, integration, vendor, compliance, operational readiness) and escalate with clear options and impacts.
Support portfolio-level delivery by contributing to prioritisation discussions, dependency mapping, and capacity-aware planning for major initiatives
Education:
Educated to degree level in Business, Technology, Engineering, Life Sciences, or an equivalent discipline.
Professional certifications desirable: PMP, PgMP, PfMP, SAFe, MSP, or similar.
Equivalent experience in enterprise IT project/portfolio management leadership also considered.
Skills:
Expert knowledge of enterprise project management methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, hybrid) and governance practices, with strong delivery assurance capability.
Proven ability to lead delivery of large-scale, complex technology projects in matrixed, cross-functional environments.
Exceptional stakeholder management, communication, and influencing skills, including confident engagement with senior executives.
Strong risk, issue, dependency, and change control management, with a practical, outcomes-focused approach to decision-making and trade-offs.
High proficiency in project delivery and reporting tools (e.g., Azure DevOps, Jira, Smartsheet, MS Project, ServiceNow).
Strong commercial and financial acumen, including budgeting, forecasting, and benefits/value tracking for technology investments.
Able to operate with autonomy, resilience, and composure under pressure; adept at navigating ambiguity and organizational change.
Open and collaborative mindset, willingness to work as a team with integrity, honesty, and transparency.
Knowledge and Experience:
Demonstrated experience delivering complex, cross-functional technology programmes / projects at enterprise scale with multiple workstreams, vendors, and dependencies is essential.
Strong understanding of digital, data, and technology ecosystems, ideally within life sciences, CRO, or regulated industries is desirable.
Experience working within governance models that require clear audit trails, decision logs, and structured change control.
Experience influencing without authority, aligning diverse stakeholder groups, and driving delivery through clear outcomes and disciplined execution.
Knowledge of GxP validation, or regulated technology environments are desirable.
In return we will be able to offer you a structured career pathway and encouragement to develop within the role including awareness and understanding of the industry. You will be well supported and in return for your hard work you will be rewarded with a competitive base salary, bonus and holiday as well as other leading benefits you would expect with a top company in the CRO Industry.
Apply today to begin your Parexel journey!
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Skills Required
- Educated to degree level in Business, Technology, Engineering, Life Sciences, or equivalent
- Professional certifications: PMP, PgMP, PfMP, SAFe, MSP, or similar
- Expert knowledge of enterprise project management methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, hybrid)
- Proven ability to lead delivery of large-scale, complex technology projects
- Exceptional stakeholder management and communication skills
- High proficiency in project delivery and reporting tools
- Strong commercial and financial acumen including budgeting and forecasting
- Demonstrated experience delivering complex, cross-functional technology programs
- Strong understanding of digital, data, and technology ecosystems
- Knowledge of GxP validation or regulated technology environments
Parexel Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Parexel and has not been reviewed or approved by Parexel.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage is described as comprehensive, including medical, dental, vision, HSA/FSA options, and company-paid disability insurance. Descriptions often portray the package as strong or “top notch,” adding meaningful value.
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Retirement Support — Retirement offerings include a 401(k) with company matching and, in some regions, generous pension contributions. Core financial protections are emphasized as a solid part of the total rewards.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time-off programs include ample PTO or flexible/unlimited RTO alongside flexible schedules and remote/hybrid options. Work-life balance support from managers is highlighted as a practical advantage.
Parexel Insights
What We Do
Parexel is among the world’s largest clinical research organizations (CROs), providing the full range of Phase I to IV clinical development services to help life-saving treatments reach patients faster. Leveraging the breadth of our clinical, regulatory and therapeutic expertise, our team of more than 21,000 global professionals collaborates with biopharmaceutical leaders, emerging innovators and sites to design and deliver clinical trials with patients in mind, increasing access and participation to make clinical research a care option for anyone, anywhere. Our depth of industry knowledge and strong track record gained over the past 40 years is moving the industry forward and advancing clinical research in healthcare’s most complex areas, while our innovation ecosystem offers the best solutions to make every phase of the clinical trial process more efficient. With the people, insight and focus on operational excellence, we work With HeartTM every day to treat patients with dignity and continuously learn from their experiences, so every trial makes a difference. For more information, visit parexel.com. Community Guidelines Because Parexel’s social media channels are open to the general public and employees, we are not responsible for views expressed other than our own. However, we do not tolerate posts that are: • Abusive, harassing or threatening to others. • Defamatory, offensive, obscene, vulgar or depicting violence. • Hateful targeting by race/ethnicity, age, color, creed, religion, gender, sexual preference or orientation, nationality or political beliefs. • Sexually explicit or pornographic. • Fraudulent, deceptive, libelous, misleading or unlawful. • Referencing criminal or illegal activity. • Spamming. We reserve the right to remove any comments that do not adhere to our guidelines as well as report users who violate the rules of our page.
