Planning Manager

About the Role

This is a key leadership position within the Connection Projects Southern Region, reporting to the Connection Projects Southern Region Leadership Team. The role involves leading the Scheduling and Planning discipline for the region, aiming to foster a more consistent, integrated, and proactive approach to Project Controls. This will support the effective delivery of a growing portfolio of complex customer connection projects. The successful candidate will be instrumental in establishing and refining scheduling standards, developing integrated schedules across various interfaces, and promoting the use of schedules as a vital tool for decision-making, forecasting, and performance management.

The company is the Infrastructure Delivery Partner for a client at the forefront of Ireland’s Energy Transition, focused on connecting, operating, and transforming the electricity grid to support a low-carbon, renewable future. They are building expert teams to address real-world challenges and achieve the goal of enabling the grid to handle up to 80% of Ireland’s electricity from renewable sources. The Chief Infrastructure Office, comprising professionals from Engineering and Business/Commerce backgrounds, leads the development and execution of Power System and Interconnection Investment Programmes in collaboration with partners, customers, and communities. The Connection Projects (Southern Region) team specifically manages the delivery of electricity generation, demand, and interconnection customer connections to the transmission system, including transmission works for power generation and demand customer connections at distribution voltage levels.

Key Responsibilities

• Spearhead the Scheduling and Planning function for the Southern Region, offering guidance, supervision, and support to Schedulers, Project Controllers, and Project Managers to ensure robust Project Controls across the entire project portfolio.
• Develop, implement, and continuously enhance Scheduling Standards, Procedures, and Controls for the Southern Region to ensure consistency, quality, and strong schedule governance for all projects.
• Establish and lead Schedule Governance, Assurance, and Review Processes, including conducting schedule quality checks, compliance reviews, and implementing corrective actions as necessary.
• Lead the creation, integration, and ongoing maintenance of Project and Programme Schedules using Primavera P6 and MS Project Online, ensuring alignment with established work breakdown structures, scope, milestones, and delivery strategies.
• Define and integrate scheduling input requirements for Developers/Customers, Contractors, Consultants, and Internal Stakeholders to facilitate the development of fully integrated and realistic schedules.
• Drive the timely reception and effective scrutiny of schedule inputs from both internal and external parties, addressing any gaps, weak submissions, or interface risks where third-party schedules are incomplete, misaligned, or absent.
• Establish, maintain, and control Schedule baselines, managing work breakdown structures, basis of schedule documents, assumptions logs, change control, and schedule variance reporting.
• Facilitate and lead schedule development and progress review workshops involving Multi-Disciplinary Teams, Package Leads, Consultants, and Subject Matter Experts to ensure schedules remain current, coordinated, and achievable.
• Promote the utilization of schedules as an active project delivery tool to support forecasting, progress measurement, interface management, trend analysis, what-if scenario planning, recovery planning, and risk identification.
• Deliver high-quality project and programme reporting, including monthly progress updates, lookahead reports, executive-level programme reports, critical path analysis, and clear schedule status reporting for stakeholders at all levels.
• Review, assess, and challenge the feasibility of contractor and third-party schedules, ensuring that assumptions, dependencies, interfaces, and key milestones are appropriately reflected and actively managed.

Additional Information

• This is a permanent or contractor role with an initial contract duration of 12+ months.
• The role is based in Cork, Ireland, with a hybrid working arrangement, leaning more towards remote work.
• The company is dedicated to Ireland’s Energy Transition, aiming to prepare the grid for up to 80% renewable electricity sources.