A method and apparatus for resource management in a multicore processor is disclosed. A system management controller (130) provides omnipresent scheduling, synchronization, load balancing, and power and memory management services to each processing resource (150) within in a multicore processor (10), via a plurality of system management clients (120) implemented in hardware or software. The controller (130) allocates the tasks executing in each processing resource (150) by means of interrupt control signals, which interact directly with the system management clients (120), enabling processing resources (150) to autonomously create, execute and distribute tasks around a parallel system architecture whilst monitoring and policing the use of shared system resources (140).