Planning Lead

Main Responsibilities

• Develop, maintain and manage integrated master schedules covering design, procurement, enabling works, construction, utilities, commissioning, IST, handover and operational readiness activities.
• Review, interrogate and challenge General Contractor and supply chain programs to confirm logic, sequencing, scope completeness, critical path integrity and alignment with contractual milestones.
• Provide client-side schedule assurance by testing program assumptions, validating progress updates and identifying inconsistencies, gaps or unrealistic forecasts.
• Monitor project progress against baseline and current approved schedules, highlighting variances, emerging delays, float erosion and potential impacts to key milestones.
• Lead critical path, float, look-ahead, scenario and recovery analysis to support informed decision-making by the client and wider project leadership team.
• Support procurement and tender processes by reviewing bidder program, phasing strategies, logistics assumptions and schedule-related submissions.
• Work closely with project managers, development managers, design teams, commercial teams, consultants, utilities providers, contractors and operations stakeholders to maintain an accurate view of program performance.
• Prepare clear, concise and accurate program reports for internal governance, executive reporting, project reviews and stakeholder updates.
• Support risk management activities by identifying schedule risks, assessing potential impacts and developing mitigation or acceleration strategies.
• Contribute to change control, delay analysis and schedule impact assessments, ensuring changes are properly evaluated and reflected in program forecasts.
• Attend project meetings, planning workshops, contractor reviews and site progress sessions, providing constructive challenge and practical planning guidance.
• Promote planning best practice, schedule quality standards and consistent project controls processes across the client’s data center portfolio.

Qualifications And Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in construction management, engineering, project management, quantity surveying or a related construction discipline.
• 10+ years’ experience in planning, scheduling or project controls within the data centre industry or a similarly fast-paced construction sector.
• Strong client-side planning and project controls experience, ideally representing an owner, developer or end client on major capital projects.
• Experience reviewing and challenging General Contractor programs, including logic, sequencing, critical path, float, constraints and recovery plans.
• Proven experience on large-scale mission-critical, data centre, advanced manufacturing, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, infrastructure or complex MEP-led projects.
• Strong understanding of design, procurement, construction, commissioning, IST and handover sequencing.
• Experience preparing executive-level schedule reports, including milestone tracking, critical path commentary, variance analysis and risk or opportunity summaries.
• Ability to lead planning workshops, programme reviews and schedule assurance sessions with contractors, consultants and internal stakeholders.
• Knowledge of delay analysis, change control and schedule impact assessment, with the ability to assess programme risk and support mitigation planning.
• Experience working with baseline schedules, progress updates, lookaheads, recovery programmes and scenario planning.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, growing international business with evolving processes and high levels of stakeholder engagement.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate complex programme information into clear, actionable insights for senior stakeholders.
• Proficient in Primavera P6, with the ability to build, review, maintain and analyse complex integrated schedules.
• Experience with data-led reporting, schedule quality, QSRA and schedule integrity tools such as Power BI, Acumen Fuse, ScheduleReader, Deltek Acumen, Safran, Primavera Risk Analysis or similar.