Project Support Officer

Spektrum supports apex purchasers (NATO, UN, EU, and National Government and Defence) and their Tier 1 supplier ecosystem with a wide range of specialist services. We provide our clients with professional services, specialised aerospace and defence sales, delivery, and operational subject matter expertise. We are looking for personnel to join our team and support key client projects.

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Who we are supporting 

The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) is responsible for providing secure and effective communications and information technology (IT) services to NATO's member countries and its partners. The agency was established in 2012 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

The NCIA provides a wide range of services, including:

• Cyber Security: The NCIA provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to protect NATO's communication networks and information systems against cyber threats.
• Command and Control Systems: The NCIA develops and maintains the systems used by NATO's military commanders to plan and execute operations.
• Satellite Communications: The NCIA provides satellite communications services to enable secure and reliable communications between NATO forces.
• Electronic Warfare: The NCIA provides electronic warfare services to support NATO's mission to detect, deny, and defeat threats to its communication networks.
• Information Management: The NCIA manages NATO's information technology infrastructure, including its databases, applications, and servers.

Overall, the NCIA plays a critical role in ensuring the security and effectiveness of NATO's communication and information technology capabilities.

The program

Assistance and Advisory Service (AAS)

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATO’s principal C3 capability deliverer and CIS service provider. It provides, maintains and defends the NATO enterprise-wide information technology infrastructure to enable Allies to consult together under Article IV, and, when required, stand together in the face of attack under Article V.

To provide these critical services, in the modern evolving dynamic environment the NCI Agency needs to build and maintain high performance-engaged workforce. The NCI Agency workforce strategically consists of three major categorise's: NATO International Civilians (NIC)'s, Military (Mil), and Interim Workforce Consultants (IWC)'s. The IWCs are a critical part of the overall NCI Agency workforce and make up approximately 15 percent of the total workforce.

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Role ID – C004805

Role Duties and Responsibilities

• Maintain the master project plan and detailed work schedules in the agreed planning tool, updating progress weekly from workstream leads and flagging slippage or critical path risks to the Project Manager.
• Prepare look-ahead schedules, Gantt charts, and milestone trackers for use in project board meetings and team briefings.
• Support re-planning exercises at stage boundaries or when approved changes require a revised baseline.
• Own and maintain the RAID log (Risks, Actions, Issues, Dependencies), chasing owners for updates and escalating overdue items.
• Maintain the Risk Register, Issue Register, Lessons Log, Quality Register, and Decision Log, ensuring entries are current, consistently formatted, and reviewed at the appropriate governance forum.
• Track change requests through the change control process, recording the details of each approved change against the baseline.
• Establish and maintain the project filing structure, enforcing version control, naming conventions, and access permissions across the shared workspace.
• Manage the flow of project documents — distributing pre-reads, collecting sign-offs, archiving approved deliverables, and ensuring the team always works from the latest version.
• Act as configuration librarian where required, tracking the status of all formal project products.
• Track project expenditure against the approved budget, recording actuals, commitments, and forecasts and flagging variances to the Project Manager.
• Process purchase orders, timesheets, and contractor invoices through the agreed workflow, ensuring costs are coded to the correct budget lines.
• Maintain the resource allocation schedule and highlight conflicts or gaps requiring management attention.
• Coordinate site access arrangements for audit teams, refresh contractors, and specialist surveyors, liaising with local security points of contacts to secure the required access.
• Maintain the site visit schedule, tracking confirmed dates, access permits, security clearances, and any site-specific induction or health and safety requirements that must be completed before arrival.
• Maintain a site access tracker that records visit outcomes — completed, rescheduled, or denied — and flags sites with repeated access difficulties to the Project Manager for escalation to the Vendor Manager or client.
• Coordinate with contractors and internal teams to sequence site visits efficiently, grouping geographically close sites into logical routes and avoiding clashes where multiple teams require access to the same location.
• Ensure all site visit documentation — access request forms, risk assessments, method statements, and photographic evidence of completed work — is collected, filed, and linked to the relevant site record in the project filing structure.
• Draft highlight reports, checkpoint reports, and dashboard packs for the Project Manager's review, pulling together schedule, cost, risk, and quality data into a clear narrative.
• Organise all project meetings — booking rooms or virtual sessions, preparing agendas, circulating papers, and confirming attendance.
• Take accurate minutes, record decisions and actions with owners and deadlines, and follow up on outstanding actions between meetings.
• Maintain the forward calendar of stage gates, board meetings, and quality reviews, ensuring all required inputs are prepared on time.
• Act as the first point of contact for administrative queries from team members, directing people to the right templates, processes, or escalation routes.

Essential Skills, Experience and Certifications

• Strong proficiency in project scheduling tools — ideally Microsoft Project and ServiceNow
• Advanced Excel skills including pivot tables, lookups, conditional formatting, and the ability to build and maintain cost trackers and resource models.
• Confident user of Microsoft 365 (SharePoint, Teams, Word, PowerPoint) for document management, collaboration, and reporting.
• Ability to build clear, concise dashboards and visual reports that translate raw data into RAG statuses, trend charts, and exception summaries for senior audiences.
• Familiarity with project management information systems (PMIS) or portfolio tools
• Exceptional attention to detail — the kind of person who notices a version number is wrong, a date has shifted, or a name is misspelled before it reaches a board pack.
• Highly organised with the ability to manage multiple concurrent tasks, deadlines, and information flows without dropping things.
• Strong written communication — able to draft clear, grammatically correct minutes, reports, and status updates that require minimal editing by the Project Manager.
• Proactive and self-starting — able to anticipate what the Project Manager will need next rather than waiting to be asked.
• Diplomatic and persistent when chasing actions from colleagues, contractors, and senior stakeholders who may not prioritise the PSO's requests.
• Comfortable working across all levels of seniority, from site teams to the project board, and adapting communication style accordingly.
• Calm under pressure, particularly during busy reporting periods, stage gates, or when multiple deadlines converge.
• Trustworthy with sensitive information — the PSO will have visibility of financial data, personnel matters, and pre-decisional papers.
• Team-oriented with a willingness to pick up whatever needs doing — the PSO role is broad and sometimes unglamorous, and the right person takes pride in making the whole team more effective.
• Willing to challenge constructively — confident enough to push back if a process is being bypassed or a standard is slipping, even when the person cutting corners is more senior.

Working Location

• Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium

Working Policy

• Hybrid (40% onsite/ 60% offsite)

Travel

• Some travel to other NATO sites may be required

Security Clearance

• Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance