Programme and project management

Working with a strategic partner is vital – especially during major investments, infrastructure developments, or business diversification – drawing on a wider knowledge base to better understand the full lifecycle of projects and programmes and their strategic importance as they interlock. Arup acts as that strategic partner bringing effective integration.

Our teams assess whether strategic portfolios will deliver the intended outcomes, then guide impactful, lasting change. Progress is tracked using established leading and lagging metrics and KPIs to ensure results are both measurable and meaningful.

By defining strategic benefits, KPIs, and a Target Operating Model, we ensure everyone in the organisation has a shared understanding of the strategic goals and that progress remains measurable against a realistic plan.

We create clear roadmaps, mobilise the right capabilities, and manage workstreams to help organisations successfully navigate complexity and achieve the defined future state. Our structured project framework enables lasting change and focuses on unlocking real transformational value.

Preparing for the transition into live operations is always a critical phase, and we support clients from programme delivery to asset operations and management, including enabling Operational Readiness Activation & Transition (ORAT). We design phased delivery roadmaps, implement Project and Programme Management Offices (PMOs), and design and establish appropriate frameworks for assurance and performance tracking.  

Post-delivery, we offer ongoing support through health-checks and maturity assessments, basing our approach on the clients’ programmatic context, to ensure continued success.

Find out more about our ORAT service

We help clients achieve high performance across development, delivery, and operations, supported by strong controls and compliance.

Our approach integrates sustainability and regulatory requirements into our delivery models, drawing on Arup’s wider technical expertise. Our strength lies in managing multi-stakeholder interfaces and ensuring planning and consenting processes are built-in from the start.

Robust assurance and health-checks are tailored to the project, client, regulatory context and lifecycle stage, ensuring outcomes are resilient and aligned with strategic goals.

Our work ensures real estate decisions align with wider portfolio priorities, and broader strategic goals.

We are also committed to integrating net zero and sustainability into every stage, including energy, carbon, water, waste, and construction-stage environmental performance. Increasingly, we also help refurbish and repurpose existing assets to extend value and reduce embedded carbon impacts. Our experience is diverse and spans sectors including commercial, healthcare, education, transport, science and technology.

Establishing and managing advanced controls solutions is a powerful way to navigate complexity and deal with change initiatives across design and implementation, while further supporting organisations in developing project management maturity.

PMOs with a digital-first approach, ensures alignment with strategic goals and organisational governance. Data-driven project insights - AI-enabled to drive greater efficiencies across a broad range of information sources - help improve decision making and generate stronger project outcomes.

We help organisations balance risk, drive value, and enable successful delivery through strategic procurement advice and tailored sourcing strategies, to provide the insights and structure needed to make confident, data-driven decisions. Our breadth of technical experience enables our teams to develop a strategy that's founded on client organisations' current and future needs. We provide sound market analysis and engagement, maturity reviews and readiness assessments - including skills and capability gap analysis - to further develop and refine strategies in line with agreed commercial, quality and delivery objectives.

Tender management is critical, and we manage the process from initial preparation through to contract execution, ensuring efficiency, value and best practice throughout. We help clients develop and define the most robust commercial contract strategies, addressing relevant risks, and focused on the organisation's ultimate commercial performance, driving efficiency, resilience and long-term value.