Job Description
Contract Engagement Manager
Department: Services
Employment Type: Contract
Location: Remote, UK
Role title: Engagement Manager
Day rate: competitive (inside IR35)
Contract length: Initially 3/4 months with opportunity to go permanent
Are you a dynamic individual who thrives at the intersection of cutting-edge technology and client success? As an Engagement Manager at Colibri Digital, you will be the driving force behind our most impactful data, AI, and digital transformation programmes. Operating within a fast-paced, complex professional services environment, you’ll act as the primary face of our delivery team, guiding ambitious projects from initial launch all the way to brilliant, value-driven completion.
Key Responsibilities
- Act as the senior client-facing point of accountability for all assigned engagements, managing relationships from programme level through to individual workstream sponsors.
- Lead engagement planning, mobilisation, and delivery oversight across data, AI, and digital transformation projects, applying appropriate methodology and governance frameworks.
- Maintain project controls including RAID logs, change control, status reporting, and financial tracking; provide early-warning escalations to senior leadership where required.
- Support the commercial health of engagements — forecasting revenue, monitoring margin, managing scope variations, and collaborating with account teams on renewals and extensions.
- Drive stakeholder management plans; communicate programme status, risks, and decisions with clarity to both client and internal audiences, escalating appropriately.
- Manage and influence cross-functional teams including internal delivery squads, third-party vendors, and client-side resources on a matrix management basis.
- Ensure smooth sales-to-delivery handover, working closely with Solutions Architects and Account Managers to validate scope, resource plans, and commercial structures before mobilisation.
- Contribute to Colibri's delivery practice — identifying improvement opportunities, sharing lessons learned, and helping to evolve engagement management standards and tooling.
- Support business development activities including contributing to proposals, Statements of Work, and client presentations as the delivery authority.
- Ensure timely and accurate revenue recognition in collaboration with finance, maintaining discipline around milestone achievement, purchase orders, and invoicing.
- Act as cultural ambassadors — both externally with clients and internally across our delivery teams. The way an EM shows up directly shapes how our people feel and how our clients experience Colibri.
Skills, Knowledge and Expertise
- A minimum of 5 years in a client-facing professional services delivery role within an MSP or digital consultancy environment.
- Proven track record of managing multiple concurrent, complex programmes across data and/or AI domains.
- Demonstrable experience delivering AI or ML-enabled products and services to enterprise clients.
- Strong proficiency with Agile tooling: Jira, Azure DevOps, GitHub/GitLab.
- Exceptional stakeholder management and negotiation skills, with experience engaging and influencing at C-suite level.
- Strong commercial acumen across budgeting, forecasting, margin management, and change control.
- Client Partnership — Builds deep, trust-based relationships with client stakeholders; acts as a proactive, credible, and accountable delivery partner throughout the engagement lifecycle.
- Influential Communication — Communicates complex delivery topics clearly and persuasively to technical and non-technical audiences at all levels, including written and verbal executive reporting.
- Resilience & Adaptability — Thrives in ambiguous, fast-changing environments; maintains effectiveness, composure, and positive team culture under sustained pressure.
