Planner

Costain Group; Newcastle upon Tyne; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

Costain Group is seeking a Planner to support the Living Water Enterprise and AMP 8 programme across multiple live sites in the North East. You will maintain the project programme, link design, procurement, construction and handover, and ensure alignment with NEC contract requirements.

Reporting to the Planning Lead, you will develop robust baselines, manage changes, and provide lookahead schedules from site delivery teams, with experience in Civil/infrastructure projects and Primavera P6.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in project planning within Civil engineering or major infrastructure.
• Understanding of NEC contract mechanisms and programme requirements.
• Excellent written and oral presentation skills to engage stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Prepare robust contract programmes linking design, procurement, construction and handover.
• Display and analyse Critical Path; advise project team on corrective actions.
• Produce and maintain baselines; manage change control processes.
• Regularly update schedules reflecting progress, risks and opportunities.
• Create fully logic‑linked programmes aligned with NEC requirements.
• Support site delivery team with short-term lookahead planning.
• Ensure all programmes/docs comply with company standards.
• Manage multiple programmes and supervise junior planners.
• Support project controls including earned value analysis and dashboards.

Skills

Project planning

Stakeholder management

Verbal & written communication

Lookahead scheduling

Education

Civil engineering degree

Tools

Primavera P6

NEC contract knowledge

Job description

Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom and 1 more (Hybrid)

Trending

Job Info

• Job Identification 103121
• Job Category Project Management
• Posting Date 08/17/2026, 12:07 PM
• Locations NE4 7YA (Hybrid)
• Contract Type Permanent
• Driving Required Yes
• Security Clearance Required No

Job Description

Costain have won 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 c.£670m to Costain over the next 15 years.

Reporting to the Planning Lead, the Planner will be responsible for ensuring the projects are kept on track by updating and maintaining the project programme. The role will be based initially on multiple live sites across County Durham, in the construction phase, monitoring the site delivery programme and updating the contractual submissions to Northumbrian Water. The programme will be maintained through the delivery phase to handover and then on to Completion.

Responsibilities

• Prepare robust contract programmes using the designated planning tool, that link design, procurement, construction, installation, commissioning and handover, in line with the project life cycle.
• Display and analyse the project Critical Path and advise the project team (Inc. client) of the results and any appropriate corrective action.
• Produce/maintain project baselines and execute change control process as appropriate.
• Regularly update schedules to reflect progress, change events, risks and opportunities.
• Produce fully logic linked programmes, ensuring alignment with NEC contract requirements.
• Support the site delivery team in the production and maintenance of short term lookahead programmes.
• All programmes and documentation to be produced to company practices and procedures.
• Manage several programmes and support other Panning Engineers/Junior Planning Engineers including supervision and checking of work to ensure that all work complies with company standards and procedures.
• Support implementation of project controls, including earned value analysis, reporting dashboards and performance metrics.

Qualifications

Proven experience in project planning within Civil engineering, utilities or major infrastructure.

Understanding of NEC contract mechanisms and programme requirements.

Ability to engage and build strong relationships with stakeholders, striving for mutual success.

Able to work and learn quickly in a fast paced, fun and dynamic environment.

Care about doing a great job and exceeding expectations with the quality of what you do.

Flexibility and adaptability to be able to respond rapidly to unexpected events, having the ability to shape our responses appropriately.

Excellent written and oral presentation skills to present complex interdependencies simply and clearly.

CSCS

• Full UK Driving licence

Water industry experience

Enterprise working

Proficiency in Primavera P6

#LI-JA1

About Us

Costain helps to improve people’s lives with integrated, leading edge, smart infrastructure solutions across the UK’s energy, water, transportation and defence markets. We help our clients improve their business performance by increasing capacity, improving customer service, safeguarding security, enhancing resilience, decarbonising and delivering increased efficiency. Our vision is to be the UK’s leading smart infrastructure solutions company. We will achieve this by focusing on blue chip clients whose major spending plans are underpinned by strategic national needs, regulatory commitments, legislation or essential performance requirements. We offer our clients leading edge solutions that are digitally optimised through the following five services which cover the whole lifecycle of their assets: future-shaping strategic consultancy; consultancy and advisory; digital technology solutions; asset optimisation and complex programme delivery. Our culture and values underpin everything we do. Costain appreciate the time and effort taken when applying for one of our positions but, due to the high volume of responses, we are unable to provide individual feedback on candidates at application phase. We do share individual feedback following an interview .

A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that disclose they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer.

It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people.

For more details please go to the Disability Confident website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/disability-confident-campaign