Senior Planner

Senior Planner
Culham Science Centre, Abingdon, GB
Full-time
Salary: £56,556 + excellent benefits including outstanding pension
Site Location: UKAEA Culham, Oxfordshire
Confirmed Grade: Level 6
Department: PfMO
Company Description
By 2050, the planet could be using twice as much electricity compared to today. Are you interested in contributing and helping to shape the future of the world’s energy? If so, read on.
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 realising fusion energy, partnering with industry and research for groundbreaking advancements. Our goal is to bring fusion electricity to the grid, supported by tomorrow's power stations. In pursuit of our mission, UKAEA embraces core values: Innovative, Committed, Trusted, and Collaborative.
As an employee of UKAEA, you will benefit from:
- Outstanding defined benefit pension scheme, details of which can be found at the end of this advert.
- Corporate bonus scheme of up to 7% and a Relocation allowance (if eligible).
- Flexible working options including family-friendly policies.
- Employee Assistance Programme and trained Mental Health First Aiders.
- Emergency paid leave, Generous annual leave allowance (30.5 days) increased with length of service.
- Wide range of career development opportunities.
- A vibrant culture committed to being fully inclusive.
This role requires employees to complete an online Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), including The Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) checks for criminal convictions.
Job Description
Are you looking for an exciting opportunity to make a difference? Join our team and contribute to the future of fusion energy. As Senior 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 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 the use of MS Office Suite e.g., MS Excel, MS Word.
- Proficient in using and administrating project management software e.g., MS Project or Primavera.
- Excellent communication skills, and the proven ability to influence people.
- Ability to quickly understand and absorb technical information.
- Ability to effectively lead a busy team.
- Flexible approach.
Additional Information
For a full list of benefits and to apply, select the apply button to be taken through to the UKAEA careers pages.
We welcome applications from under-represented groups, particularly individuals from black and other ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities, and women. Our Executive team, supported by our 'Equality, Diversity and Inclusion' (EDI) Partner and Inclusion Ambassadors, actively promotes EDI and takes steps to increase diversity within our organisation. We reinforce best practices in recruitment and selection and evaluate approaches to remove barriers to success.
Please note that vacancies are generally advertised for 4 weeks but may close earlier if we receive a large number of applications.
For applicants applying from outside the United Kingdom or those who have spent time outside the UK in the last five years, please visit the UK Government website for information on criminal records checks. If your country of residence or previous residence is not listed on the website or if the UK Government does not have information on obtaining a criminal records check from that state, we regret to inform you that we cannot process your application.