Location
Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom

Hours
Full Time

Salary
Negotiable

About the Role
Costain has secured extensive work across the water sector to support the AMP 8 investment cycle. We have been appointed by Northumbrian Water to the Living Water Enterprise to help shape and deliver its strategic infrastructure upgrade programme, with contracts valued up to approximately £670m over 15 years. We are seeking an experienced Planning Lead to join the Framework team as a key member of the Delivery Team. The successful candidate will be aligned to the new AMP8 projects and must demonstrate experience integrating and managing schedules across large-scale civil engineering programmes. This role requires working across multi-disciplinary programme teams covering all aspects of project delivery from design through procurement, construction, and commissioning.

The Planning Lead will develop a strategic overview of the programme, take ownership of cross-project integration, schedule change management, and understand underlying risks and opportunities that may impact programme delivery. Responsibilities include setting the planning strategy for complex projects, supporting the development and maintenance of high-quality schedules, establishing robust systems and processes, and reporting programme/project status in line with governance and procedures. The role also involves critical path analysis, managing change and mitigation, fostering collaborative relationships with the Customer, and consolidating data for monthly progress and performance reports. Ensuring suitably qualified planning resources are provided to projects in a timely manner is also essential.

Experience
- Extensive schedule management experience on large-scale civil engineering or infrastructure projects, ideally with a tier 1 contractor or client-side.
- Significant planning experience in the water industry preferred, or experience in other large-scale infrastructure programmes.
- Proven expertise in multi-project integration.
- Project management experience on complex major infrastructure programmes, including risk, cost, change management, earned value, and reporting.
- Expert user of Primavera P6 for large-scale projects with strong critical path tracing and analysis skills.
- Scheduling and reporting experience within NEC contract frameworks.
- Excellent communication skills with the ability to negotiate and influence key stakeholders.
- Experience maintaining performance and contractual baselines, producing critical path analysis on fully resourced and cost-loaded plans, monitoring changes, and reporting early warnings and variations.
- Strong leadership skills with experience leading teams and advising senior colleagues to achieve business goals.

About you
Proactive and strategic thinker with the ability to manage complex programmes and collaborate effectively across multi-disciplinary teams. You are confident in developing and maintaining integrated plans, managing dependencies, and coordinating resources to meet schedule deadlines. You demonstrate strong governance and compliance with policies, procedures, and standards, and foster open, transparent relationships with customers and stakeholders.

Qualifications
HNC/HND, degree qualified or equivalent experience in a planning-related discipline.