Job Description
Deliver work that matters, in places that inspire
We’re looking for a calm, capable and collaborative Project Manager to join our small, remote design agency doing meaningful creative work for our natural and cultural heritage clients.
In this 14-month contract (with potential for extension/being permanent) you’ll manage our varied design projects in beautiful places – from wayfinding and immersive exhibitions to heritage interpretation, maps and campaigns. Real-life stuff that makes a difference and improves experiences.
If you love helping creative work come to life, enjoy a bit of problem solving, value good people and purpose-led work, we’d love to hear from you.
The details
Job title: Project Manager
Contract: Full time, fixed term maternity cover contract, June 2025 – August 2026. Potential for extension of contract or permanent role at end (part-time or full-time).
Location: Fully remote (UK-based), with occasional travel required to events and occasional meetings at beautiful sites across the UK.
Hours: Full time, 37.5 hours/week
Salary: £28,000-32,000 DOE
The way we work
We’re a small but mighty creative agency specialising in design for heritage, nature and culture. From national parks to museums and historic estates to visitor destinations across the UK, we aim to help people connect with places through thoughtful, engaging and inclusive design.
Our projects include everything from wayfinding systems and interpretive panels to maps, interactive exhibitions, branding toolkits and marketing campaigns. We work with inspiring clients who share our values and we love creating work that is useful, meaningful and beautiful – in real life.
Day-to-day you’ll be working from home online but occasional site visits that you will attend could be to museums, offices, conferences… even remote mountain-sides in the pouring rain.
We’re a fully remote team with a strong culture of collaboration, care and flexibility. You’ll be joining a genuinely nice, curious and creative team doing impactful work in some of the UK’s most fascinating and loved places.
About the role
We’re looking for an experienced, organised, confident and thoughtful Project Manager to cover a key team member’s maternity leave. You’ll coordinate people and processes to deliver creative projects on time, on budget and to brief, all while supporting our wonderful clients and collaborators.
This role is ideal for someone who thrives in a varied, fast-paced environment and is looking to do meaningful work with a purpose-driven agency. Someone with a genuine interest in the outdoors, nature and our cultural history.
Key responsibilities
- Project planning and delivery: Manage a wide variety of projects from kick-off to installation, including print, signage, heritage interpretation, exhibitions, and campaigns.
- Client liaison: Build strong, trust-based relationships with clients, supporting them throughout the process and occasionally challenging them (kindly!) to get the best results. We work with passionate people who may not have worked with designers before and need support through the process.
- Studio co-ordination: Remotely manage scheduling, studio workflow, project documentation and communications.
- Supplier and contractor management: Liaise with all kinds of specialists including illustrators, heritage consultants, craftspeople, copywriters, printers and fabricators to ensure high-quality, cost-effective delivery.
- Tendering, quoting and invoicing: Prepare project estimates, submit successful tenders and support with billing and budget tracking.
- Proofing and quality: With the creative director, oversee quality control, from copy edits to final production checks.
- Team support: Support colleagues with research, logistics, meetings and creative discussion.
- Website and marketing: Help keep our online presence fresh with case studies and updates (but don’t look too closely at the current site as it’s not been updated for a couple of years!)
- New business: Spot potential to grow existing client accounts and identify new opportunities, whether through public sector tendering, word-of-mouth or other ways.
- As an integral part of the team and the link between client, designer and supplier, proactive and effective problem solving is a regular requirement. Whether that’s getting an engraved toposcope installed atop a Norman tower safely or liaising with suppliers to find a solution to an installation when things go wrong – because sometimes they do!
About you
You’re a calm, capable and collaborative project manager who genuinely enjoys helping creative work come to life. You’re comfortable with both people and processes and bring a mix of attention to detail, flexibility and empathy to everything you do.
Required skills
Essential skills and experience
- 5+ years’ experience in a project/account/visitor experience management role (agency or client side).
- Excellent communication and thoughtful client relationship skills.
- Experience in successful public tendering (agency or client side).
- Experience working with designers, writers, and specialist contractors.
- Demonstrable experience managing multiple creative projects simultaneously and end-to-end.
- Knowledge of print and production processes.
- High attention to detail and great proofreading skills.
- Skilled at managing your own time, workload and deadlines, plus those of others too.
- Confident handling quotes, budgets and invoicing.
- Comfortable working remotely and using online tools to collaborate
- Asking the right questions in advance (and predicting the future ideally) to make sure things don’t go wrong.
- A love of heritage and the great outdoors.
Desirable experience
- Experience of cultural and/or landscape heritage interpretation.
- Working with public or third sector organisations.
- Understanding of signage and wayfinding design and installation.
- Understanding of universal design principles and inclusive design.
- Familiarity with working on sensitive sites.
- Comfortable using ChatGPT or other AI tools to support admin and productivity, not to replace it! Knowing how to prompt well and refine outputs whilst remaining human and knowing the subject matter.
- Experience of working on Heritage Lottery Fund projects.
- Ability to support early creative concept development and enjoyment of creative storytelling – being a small team, we work together on concepting and creative problem solving.
- A love of maps and information design.
Tools we use
You don’t need to be an expert in all of these, but you’ll need to be comfortable picking things up:
- Project and studio tools: Trello, Slack, Dropbox, Zoom, FreeAgent, ChatGPT
- Creative software: Adobe InDesign, Acrobat
- Docs and comms: Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Teams.
Benefits
Working at The Way
We’re committed to being an inclusive and equitable employer. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, especially those underrepresented in the creative and heritage sectors. If you meet most of the requirements but are unsure about a couple of things, please do apply anyway.
We offer:
- Full membership to English Heritage, National Trust, RSPB or similar organisation of your choice.
- 20 days’ holiday and bank holidays, PLUS Christmas week closure and your birthday off.
- Flexible, remote working
- NEST pension
- CPD support
All applicants must have the legal right to work in the UK at the time of application.
Interested? Apply now
Send in:
- Your two-page CV as PDF outlining your experience
- A covering letter (or email) telling us why you’re a great fit for the role including
- Three short bullet points on your greatest work achievements and
- Finish off by sharing one of your favourite nature or museum experiences.
Then email it all to india@thewaydesign.co.uk
Closing date: 9am on 24th April, 2025.
Interviews may be held in advance of deadline.
No agencies, thanks.