Senior Planner

Location: Warwickshire

Senior Planner - Electricity Transmission (Cyber, OT & IT Portfolio)

(Working within the Electricity Transmission business of a major UK energy utility)

Contract, Location & Working Pattern

Contract:

6‑month initial contract
Option:
Temp‑to‑perm considered

Location:

Warwick
Hybrid:
Minimum 2 days per week onsite

Role Purpose

This role supports the Electricity Transmission (ET) organisation of a major UK energy utility, working across a portfolio of three major programmes focused on Cyber Security, Operational Technology (OT), Information Technology (IT), and wider Operational capability uplift.

The Senior Planner will develop, integrate, and maintain high‑quality project, programme, and portfolio‑level plans. A critical component of the role is to provide portfolio roadmaps and detailed critical path analysis, ensuring leadership has clear visibility of dependencies, sequencing, milestones, regulatory obligations, and delivery risks.

The postholder must have a strong grounding in IT project environments, including common project deliverables, lifecycle stages, and governance methodologies such as PRINCE2, Agile, and hybrid delivery approaches.

Key Responsibilities

Portfolio Road mapping & Strategic Planning

Produce and maintain portfolio‑level roadmaps across Cyber, OT, IT, and Operational programmes.
Provide clear and actionable critical path analysis to identify risks, constraints, and key delivery interfaces.
Conduct scenario modelling to support robust decision‑making and prioritisation.

Programme & Project Planning

Build and maintain plans using Microsoft Project (advanced) and Primavera P6.
Ensure plans align with organisational planning standards and methodologies (Waterfall, Agile, hybrid).
Work closely with Project Managers to ensure plans reflect accurate progress and deliverables.
Monitor progress against baselines and recommend corrective action where required.

Agile & IT Project Integration

Integrate Agile delivery outputs (sprints, epics, backlogs) into overall programme schedules.
Ensure IT project deliverables (e.g., requirements, design documents, testing phases, deployment activities) are clearly reflected in plans.
Use Jira to track Agile activity and Confluence for documentation and governance.

Reporting & Insight

Produce weekly and monthly reports covering roadmap updates, critical paths, resource pressures, risks, and milestones.
Review contractor programme submissions, challenging assumptions and advising on remediation.
Present insights to leadership with clarity and strategic focus.

Controls, Assurance & Continuous Improvement

Conduct dependency mapping, impact assessments, and timeline risk analysis across multiple programmes.
Support assessment of compensation events and recovery plans.
Continuously improve planning standards, templates, dashboards, and reporting maturity.

Knowledge, Experience & Technical Expertise

Knowledge / Experience

Extensive experience in complex programme or portfolio planning within IT, OT, Cyber, or infrastructure environments.
Strong understanding of IT project life cycles, deliverables, phase gates, testing stages, and deployment processes.
Familiar with structured project management methodologies such as PRINCE2, as well as Agile and hybrid delivery.

Experience with NEC contract planning and contractor engagement.
Background in regulated, critical national infrastructure environments (advantageous).Interpersonal & Leadership Skills

Excellent stakeholder management skills, including engagement with senior leaders.
Confident in constructively challenging assumptions and influencing planning discipline.
Clear communicator capable of simplifying complex plan and dependency data.
Ability to collaborate across multi‑disciplinary technical and operational teams.

Technical Skills

Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Project (essential).

Experience with Primavera P6.
Strong working knowledge of Jira (Agile planning) and Confluence.
Capable of planning across Waterfall, Agile, and hybrid methodologies.
Skilled in producing roadmaps, critical path analysis, dependency mapping, and scenario planning.
Strong Excel and SharePoint capability for analysis and reporting.

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