Senior Planner

Job Description

About us

Fusion, the process that powers the sun and stars, is one of the most promising options for generating the cleaner, carbon-free energy that our world badly needs. UKAEA leads the way in realizing fusion energy, partnering with industry and research organisations to achieve ground-breaking advancements. Our goal is to bring fusion electricity to the grid by developing the power stations of tomorrow and the skilled workforce to deliver them.

About the job

As Senior Planner within our Portfolio Management Office, you'll be matrixed to one of our more complex engineering projects to provide senior planning inputs for an assigned programme or portfolio of work. You will provide leadership to a team of planners within an assigned programme or portfolio area, while working with the senior project leadership team to ensure high-quality project schedules, resource forecasts and programme information support effective decision-making. This is an opportunity to shape planning best practice on some of our more complex projects, and play a key role in delivering UKAEA's mission to realise sustainable fusion energy. We have three roles available to fill.

What You'll be Doing

• Lead, develop and mentor a team of planners, managing workloads and supporting professional development.
• Produce and maintain integrated project and programme schedules that support the successful delivery of engineering projects.
• Establish and maintain planning standards, processes and governance to ensure consistent, high-quality planning information.
• Monitor project progress, analyse schedule performance and identify risks, critical path impacts and resource requirements.
• Provide planning reports, forecasts and schedule updates to support project boards and senior management decision-making.
• Manage and maintain the Primavera planning environment and associated databases, ensuring systems remain fit for purpose.
• Support project controls activities, including change control, resource planning and schedule analysis.
• Drive continuous improvement in project planning practices across UKAEA.
• Build and maintain relationships with internal teams and external professional networks to promote planning best practice.
• Support the recruitment, performance management and development of the planning team.

What You'll Bring

• Degree in Engineering, Physical Sciences or a related discipline (or senior level experience in a related industry).
• Experience in engineering or a comparable technical environment.
• Experience leading a planning team or working in a senior project planning or project controls role.
• Proficiency in Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project, including system administration.
• Experience developing and maintaining complex project schedules and resource plans.
• A recognised project management or project controls qualification (such as APM or PRINCE2) would be advantageous.

UKAEA is an onsite organisation, and this role requires regular onsite presence (usually between 3-5 days in any given week) in line with business needs. We actively support flexible working arrangements where this is compatible with the role.

Benefits

We have a generous range of benefits (see the full list here) and highlights include:

• A salary of £71,815 (inclusive of a £7700 specialist allowance)
• Up to 7% corporate performance bonus
• Final salary defined benefits pension scheme with an equivalent of 21.5% employer pension contribution
• 25 days annual leave, 2.5 privilege days and 8 Bank Holidays
• 3 days of site closure over Christmas break
• Flexible working options plus family-friendly leave provisions

Our commitment to ED&I

UKAEA's mission is clean energy for all, and we welcome talented people from all backgrounds to help us achieve this goal. We are committed to equality, diversity, inclusion and accessibility, and strive to ensure fair representation across our workforce.

Please email talent@ukaea.uk if you have any questions or require adjustments to help you participate fairly in our recruitment process, for example changes to the way we interview or share information. As a Disability Confident Employer, we are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment experience for all candidates.

We particularly encourage applications from groups currently underrepresented in STEM, including women and people from diverse ethnic backgrounds. All appointments are made on merit and further information can be found here.

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