Lead Planner

As a Lead Planner, you will provide leadership, assurance and strategic direction across planning activities for complex programmes and multidisciplinary teams. This role includes one day per week based in London to support stakeholder engagement, governance activities and collaborative planning sessions.

• Provide leadership, coaching and potentially line management to planning resources, ensuring high-quality outputs, professional development and consistent ways of working.
• Lead on quality assurance across all planning and scheduling deliverables, ensuring accuracy, consistency, compliance and adherence to industry standards and internal governance.
• Take a proactive, analytical approach to future issues, identifying early-warning signals, emerging risks, schedule vulnerabilities and opportunities for schedule optimisation.
• Develop the overall planning strategy for programmes, including schedule structure, governance, reporting frameworks and integration requirements.
• Oversee the development and maintenance of integrated project and programme schedules, ensuring robust logic, sequencing, critical path management and effective change control.
• Provide authoritative schedule analysis including scenario modelling, impact assessments, forward-looking forecasts, and mitigation strategies for senior stakeholders.
• Lead schedule-related elements of performance measurement, including Earned Value Management, trend analysis and schedule-cost-risk integration.
• Ensure effective baseline establishment and management, aligned with contractual and governance requirements.
• Provide leadership in schedule reporting, producing clear, consistent and insightful updates for clients and senior leadership, with a focus on future risks and actionable insights.
• Build strong client and stakeholder relationships, representing the Planning function at a senior level and influencing decision-making.
• Drive continuous improvement, standardisation and best practice across planning processes, tools and methodologies.
• Oversee compliance with relevant contract requirements (NEC, JCT, FIDIC etc.) and ensure planning obligations are met.
• Support bids and work-winning activities, defining planning methodologies, estimates and presenting planning approaches.
• Champion capability development across the planning community and contribute to the growth of the service offering.

• Extensive planning experience, including work on complex, multidisciplinary or major projects/programmes.
• Strong leadership experience, with the ability to manage, coach and assure planning teams.
• High capability in QA, governance and analytical review, with a focus on early identification of issues and proposing solutions.
• Advanced proficiency in planning tools including Primavera P6, Microsoft Project, Open Plan, Asta Power project (or similar).
• Deep understanding of schedule development, logic, critical path, scenario modelling and forward-facing schedule risk.
• Proven experience integrating schedule, cost and risk, including EVM and forecasting.
• Strong capability in baseline management, change control and programme governance.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, able to produce clear narrative, engage senior stakeholders and influence decision-making.
• Strong understanding of project controls disciplines and how they integrate with planning.
• Working knowledge of relevant contract forms (NEC, JCT, FIDIC etc.) and their implications for planning and reporting.
• Experience in consultancy environments, managing diverse client needs.
• Engineering and/or construction background highly desirable to support engagement with delivery, design, procurement and technical teams.

We're Atkins Réalis, a world‑class engineering services and nuclear organisation. We connect people, data and technology to transform the world’s infrastructure and energy systems. Together, with our industry partners and clients, and our global team of consultants, designers, engineers and project managers, we can change the world. We’re committed to leading our clients across our various end markets to engineer a better future for our planet and its people.