Associate (Planner)

We are currently looking for an Associate Planner to support with the growth of the business and the continued delivery of world class service to our diverse client base. Working within a dynamic capital programmes team, this is an exciting opportunity to work with high profile clients on large scale commercial projects. The ideal candidate will thrive on challenge and be comfortable in client facing roles, being both eager to learn and develop whilst also assisting to drive forward our position as an industry leader. Your attention to detail, analytical skills, ability to collaborate and work autonomously with various stakeholders will be important to your success in the role. There are also opportunities to be involved in market leading initiatives, utilising emerging scheduling cloud technology, play a role in our sector communities, specialist forums and business development.

What You Will Do

• Schedule Development: Develop, update and maintain detailed project schedules using planning tools such as Primavera P6 (Desired) and/or Microsoft Project. Define and maintain a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) of deliverables that are logically linked and be able to articulate key milestones, interdependencies and critical path. Develop and apply installation rates to quantity take-offs to produce realistic schedules.
• Progress Monitoring: Track project performance and progress against a baseline schedule(s). Support programme assessment including time impact analysis, delay analysis, and evaluation of compensation events and extensions of time. Conduct and articulate a critical path analysis and variance analysis to identify deviations and recovery actions. Review contractor schedules for acceptance and provide recommendations for acceptance or rejection.
• Cost Management: Working closely with the Cost Management function to generate an integrated Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS). Monitor physical progress against a baseline and forecast budget, identifying remaining work against the Estimate Cost to Complete (ETC). Collaboratively develop and maintain forecasts of resource requirements, both short and long term in line with the cost estimate.
• Risk and Change Management: Contribute to schedule risk analysis and scenario planning. Assess time impact change requests and support the change control process.
• Reporting: Evaluate quantities, labour hours, staffing profiles, and schedule logic at discipline or trade level. Produce discipline-specific progress, productivity, and performance reports. Produce schedule reports, look-ahead plans, that contribute to BI dashboards and articulate progress metrics for internal and external stakeholders. Articulate metrics associated with EVM and how this affects the project timeline.
• Coordination and Communication: A strong communicator at all levels, being able to lead workshops, extract information from the project team and present to senior management. Has experience of working with multiple senior stakeholders with competing interests. Has the ability to translate and distil complex data and information into clear and engaging messages and reports. Able to plan and structure reports and presentations to convey information concisely.

About You

• Experience in providing planning services on major capital projects or programmes of £100m+ including within a live operational environment. Aviation experience is highly desirable but not essential.
• Proven hands-on experience in managing elements of a project or programme as part of a PMO or site environment, must be able to work independently with supervision.
• Demonstrable and proven experience in developing and updating schedules that correlate project change logs and risk registers.
• Previous experience in monitoring and maintaining forecast schedules against a baseline.
• Experience of delivering or supporting delivery of dashboard style reports using Excel and/or Power BI.
• Proven construction industry knowledge and knowledge of construction project lifecycles (design through commissioning).
• A competent user of scheduling software (Primavera P6 and Microsoft Project) and the Microsoft Office suite.
• Familiar with standard forms of construction contracts (e.g. NEC).
• Strong communication skills, able to liaise with stakeholders on all levels, lead workshops and present to senior project or programme management, able to build strong relationships with clients and network effectively.
• Experience of working with multiple senior stakeholders with competing interests.
• Able to translate and distil data and information into clear and engaging messages and reports.
• Able to plan and structure reports and presentations to convey information in a clear and concise manner.
• Able to deliver high quality work in challenging timeframes within a consultancy environment.
• Has excellent organisational, planning and proactive time management skills.
• Self-motivated, self-starter - able to achieve deliverables and objectives with minimal supervision.
• Motivated and ambitious.
• Act on their maturing ability to understand the client requirements and able to communicate effectively to their line management or partner.