Senior Planner

Overview of Responsibilities

Are you looking for an exciting opportunity to make a difference? Join our team and contribute to the future of fusion energy. As Senior Project Planner, you will play a pivotal role in maintaining and communicating appropriate protocols to a team of project planners within assigned programmes and/or projects.  You will have overarching responsibility for ensuring that the accurate and timely production of project and programme plans by the team for project boards, key meetings and senior management and for quality assurance of same.  You will also need to effectively line manage direct reports and conduct forward planning for workloads within the section as well as follow the APS appraisal system for all direct reports including providing regular feedback, providing objectives and monitoring those objectives.  In addition, you will be organising appropriate training and development for assigned staff to build their careers and capabilities.

Additional Responsibilities:

• Managing absences such as sickness, holidays, maternity and paternity leaves within the section (assigned programme and/or projects) to ensure that all work is covered and those absences are managed via the correct UKAEA procedures.
• Recruiting and mentoring new team members in line with the orientation programme and specific section requirements and in accordance with UKAEA procedure.
• Contributing to and facilitating improvements in project management at UKAEA and working with other departmental and section managers, particularly the central Portfolio Management Office (PfMO) to achieve this.
• Maintaining a presence in appropriate knowledge sharing networks (e.g. Oracle Knowledge, APM, local PM forums and international fusion planning forums) to keep up to speed with developments in project management, planning and available software both internally and externally. 
• Attending quality review meetings and ensuring that projects and/or work packages requiring technical control are appropriately and adequately planned in line with site management systems and departmental templates.

NOTE : Roles are available in our Culham and our West Burton sites. Please indicate any preference for location in your application. 

Qualifications

Essential Requirements:

• Degree in engineering, physical sciences or related subject.
• Previous experience in engineering or a related field. 
• Previous experience working in a senior or leadership position within a project office or project support function. 
• Proficient in use of MS Office Suite eg. MS Excel, MS Word.
• Proficient in using and administrating project management software eg. MS Project or Primavera.
• Excellent communication skills, proven ability to influence people.
• Ability to quickly understand and absorb technical information.
• Ability to effectively lead a busy team.
• Flexible approach.