Associate Planning Specialist in Warwick

At National Grid, our commitment to a cleaner, greener energy future is powered by the dedication and ingenuity of our people. Join our team as an Associate Planning Specialist and be a part of something bigger—where your unique skills and passions can make a real difference. Together, we are superpowered.

As an Associate Planning Specialist, you will support the Global Procurement function in the delivery of our ambition to enable a clean, fair, and affordable energy future through commercial, responsible, and innovative supply chain leadership. You will contribute to and lead a series of projects and initiatives which could be specific to one or spread across multiple teams. You will get the opportunity to collate, organise, and analyse data and help bring insights to the wider Global Procurement team.

Working within the Procurement Planning Team (UK), you will support and implement a comprehensive performance strategy for Global Procurement encompassing planning, forecasting, performance improvement and leadership reporting. You will be analysing data, driving efficiencies, and bridging the gap between data and real-world procurement outcomes, ensuring procurement services are delivered effectively to expected service levels, service improvements and cost savings.

We are seeking a professional with strong analytical, communication and stakeholder management skills with excellent attention to detail. This role is based out of our Warwick office, with hybrid working. We are happy to discuss any additional flexibility in working patterns or requirements that you feel could help to make this job work for you.

• Support and provide guidance on Procurement business planning policies and processes carried out by the UK Procurement Planning Team, ensuring full compliance and adherence to agreed processes and methodologies.
• Support the development, management and monitoring of business plans to facilitate its delivery and ensure that it continually evolves such that Procurement is providing the optimum level of service to the National Grid business.
• Prepare reports and presentations to communicate procurement planning initiatives and reporting for the Procurement department, including quarterly stakeholder meetings and leadership reporting.
• Extract, analyse, and summarise large or complex data sources into simplified and easy to interpret outputs for Procurement Managers.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with internal stakeholders.
• Drive management and issue resolution of Stakeholder and Leadership issues and queries. Track, monitor and make sure actions and queries are addressed.
• Manage the Procurement Global Planning System, monitoring access, dashboards, automated reports, and training archive.
• Provide support to the Senior Planning Specialist, ensuring the right Planning system standards are embedded across Procurement with the necessary training of staff.
• Identify and investigate any potential system issues within Procurement Global Planning System.
• Co-ordinate the delivery of key service delivery activities to ensure that a consistent approach is taken, resources are used efficiently and that there is alignment with operational plans and service standards.
• Support the Planning and Performance Team in performing deep dive analysis of data and processes to identify opportunities for continuous improvement through effective business planning and provision management.
• Identification of data inaccuracies, process blockers, or inefficiencies, and identify/propose improved methods or ways of working to continually improve the way in which we operate.

• Critical & creative thinking, a collaborative approach, a process focused approach, confidence, resilience and excellent communication.
• Strong customer service and relationship building skills and interpersonal skills, ability to interact credibly and genuinely with stakeholders to enhance user experience.
• Manage different activities concurrently and meet deadlines.
• Experience in collating and organising data, analysing commercial issues and bringing insight to the detail including developing KPIs.
• Advanced Excel and strong PowerPoint, data visualisation (such as PowerBI), and database tools experience.

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply for jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At National Grid, we are committed to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace for everyone. So, if you’re excited about this role but your experience or qualifications don’t match the job description exactly, we encourage you to apply anyway. You might just be the right person for our growing business in this role or another one.

£40,706 per annum – dependent on capability. As well as your base salary, you will receive a bonus based on personal and company performance and a competitive contributory pension scheme where we will double match your contribution to a maximum company contribution of 12%. You will also have access to a number of flexible benefits such as a share incentive plan, salary sacrifice car and technology schemes, support via employee assistance lines and matched charity giving to name a few.

This role closes at midnight on 27 February at midnight however we encourage candidates to submit their application as early as possible and not wait until the published closing date as this can vary. Please note that in most cases, National Grid is unable to offer sponsorship for employment under the UK points-based immigration system. As such, applicants must have the legal right to work in the UK without requiring sponsorship now or in the future under the UK points-based immigration system. However, in exceptional circumstances where there is a clear and demonstrable need for specialist skills that cannot be sourced from the local labour market, National Grid may consider offering sponsorship. All applications are welcome from candidates who meet these requirements, regardless of race, nationality, or ethnic origin.

About Us: National Grid is pioneering ways to decarbonise the energy system; from building interconnectors to allow the UK to share clean energy with our neighbours in Europe, to investing in renewable energy generation in the United States. As one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the world, National Grid is at the centre of a clean, fair and affordable energy future, where tackling climate change and reaching net zero is a key priority.