Planning Consultant

This is an opportunity to join a large-scale, complex rail infrastructure programme involving multiple construction disciplines, contractors, stakeholders and project interfaces.

The successful candidate will play a key role in developing, maintaining and monitoring project programmes, supporting construction planning and providing accurate planning information to project leadership and delivery teams.

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop, maintain and update detailed project programmes covering construction and rail delivery activities.
• Work closely with construction, engineering, project controls and commercial teams to ensure programmes accurately reflect project requirements.
• Develop detailed short-, medium- and long-term construction plans and lookahead programmes.
• Monitor progress against baseline programmes and identify areas of delay, slippage or potential programme risk.
• Analyse programme performance and provide clear reporting to project and programme management teams.
• Support the development of recovery programmes and mitigation strategies where required.
• Coordinate programme interfaces between different contractors, disciplines and project workstreams.
• Ensure programme activities are logically sequenced and reflect realistic construction methodologies and site constraints.
• Attend planning, progress and coordination meetings and provide planning input where required.
• Work with site teams to collect and validate progress information.
• Assist with forecasting completion dates, key milestones and critical activities.
• Identify programme risks, constraints and opportunities and ensure these are appropriately captured.
• Support change management and assessment of the programme impact of design, scope and construction changes.
• Produce planning reports, dashboards, progress updates and other project controls information.
• Ensure planning information is maintained accurately and consistently throughout the project lifecycle.
• Support the Planning Manager and wider project controls function with ad-hoc planning and analysis requirements.

Required Experience:

• Proven experience working in rail, LRT, metro or major transportation infrastructure projects.
• Strong experience in project planning within a construction or infrastructure environment.
• Experience working on large, complex projects involving multiple contractors and interfaces.
• Strong understanding of construction sequencing, programme development and project controls.
• Experience monitoring progress against baseline programmes and identifying programme risk.
• Experience producing detailed construction programmes and lookahead schedules.
• Ability to understand technical and construction information and translate this into realistic programme activities.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively with project managers, construction managers, engineers, commercial teams and site personnel.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent attention to detail and ability to manage multiple priorities.

Technical Skills:

Experience with Primavera P6 is highly desirable. Experience with other planning and project controls software will also be considered.

The successful candidate should be comfortable working with:

• Baseline and live programmes
• Critical path analysis
• Progress measurement
• Programme updates
• Lookahead programmes
• Resource and productivity information
• Delay and impact analysis
• Change management
• Programme risk
• Milestone tracking
• Progress reporting
• Construction sequencing

Rail / LRT Experience:

Candidates with experience across areas such as the following would be particularly relevant:

• Light Rail Transit
• Metro / Urban Transit
• Track and permanent way
• Stations
• Civil engineering
• Structures
• Rail systems
• Electrification/traction power
• Signalling and communications
• Utilities
• Highways and interfaces
• Testing and commissioning
• Rail integration
• Construction delivery

Personal Attributes:

We are looking for someone who is:

• Commercially and technically aware
• Highly organised and analytical
• Confident working with senior project stakeholders
• Comfortable challenging programme assumptions where appropriate
• Proactive in identifying risks and potential delays
• Able to communicate complex planning information clearly
• Comfortable working within a fast-paced, multidisciplinary project environment
• Collaborative and capable of building effective relationships across multiple project teams