Senior DCO Manager in Birmingham

Lead, develop and performance manage direct reports and matrixed team members to deliver a DCO application and examination to time, cost and quality expectations. Manage coordination of key internal and external stakeholders to ensure timely delivery of the DCO application through examination leading to a successful consent. Coordinate delivery of the DCO products to a high degree of quality with a right first-time approach. Lead the integrated DCO programme; maintaining control of milestones, dependencies and critical path to delivery of agreed DCO outcomes and coordinate with the wider project programme.

Responsibilities

• Lead, develop and performance manage direct reports and matrixed team members to deliver a DCO application and examination to time, cost and quality expectations.
• Manage coordination of key internal and external stakeholders to ensure timely delivery of the DCO application through examination leading to a successful consent.
• Coordinate delivery of the DCO products to a high degree of quality with a right first-time approach.
• Manage key project partners to ensure their contracts, programmes and deliverables align with expectations.
• Lead the production management and document control process and work collaboratively with the appointed supplier to ensure they support delivery of the DCO products to maintain schedule.
• Lead on an integrated DCO programme; maintaining control of milestones, dependencies and critical path to delivery of agreed DCO outcomes and protect key delivery commitments.
• Coordinate on the wider project integration with the overall project programme.
• Work with discipline leads to ensure accurate and timely financial reporting and forecasting is provided by project partners.
• Work with the integrated project team to coordinate technical inputs and outputs required for DCO submission.
• Drive understanding of the DCO process into the project team ensuring lessons learned from each stage are reviewed and shared across Strategic Infrastructure.
• Collaborate closely and effectively with other discipline leads, ensuring that the DCO programme accounts for all known risks and lessons learned from other DCO projects.
• Lead and embed a positive safety and wellbeing culture within the team to improve collective safety performance, ensuring adherence to company policy, aims and objectives.
• Be involved in defining and agreeing project consenting and communication strategies considering interfacing projects and dependencies, in particular with the consents and external affairs teams working on the project.
• Coordinate the project design change control process to ensure any design changes affecting the DCO products are captured, assessed and tracked to mitigate any risk to schedule.
• Be involved in agreeing and implementing and coordinating consultation activities for the project with the Project Director authorities per the requirements of the Planning Act 2008 (as amended).

Experience and qualifications

• Experience of working on Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project projects within an integrated project team and what it takes to deliver a successful submission and eventual consent.
• Understanding of the statutory requirements, guidance and advice associated with promoting a NSIP to ensure successful submission of a DCO application and examination.
• Proven track record in leading, managing and developing a high-performing integrated project team.
• Proven track record in developing effective business-wide networks and successful stakeholder relationships to drive the development and delivery of major infrastructure projects.
• Demonstrable willingness to find better ways of working, maximise efficiencies to improve quality, schedule certainty and accurate forecasting.
• Experience of Project Management within major project environment and awareness of commercial contracts.
• Awareness of regulatory mechanisms and how National Grid works with Ofgem.

About National Grid

This is the time for action - we need to move at pace and reform our energy system - to deliver energy security, to tackle climate change and to protect our people. Lead and coordinate successful Development Consent Orders (DCO) for major National Grid Strategic Infrastructure projects, ensuring a right-first-time approach. Working as part of the project senior leadership team, this role manages a direct team of project managers, external partners, and a wider network of land, external affairs, legal, and consenting experts to deliver DCOs to agreed schedule, budget, and quality expectations. Key responsibilities include driving understanding of the DCO process across the project team, embedding lessons learned at each stage, and sharing best practices across Strategic Infrastructure.