Senior Planner (SRO)

Yorkshire Water; Leeds; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus up to 15%

Pension scheme up to 12%

Life assurance 4x pensionable salary

25 days annual leave + wellness days

Benefits package

Retail savings scheme

Online GP service

Cycle to work scheme

Gym membership discounts

Job summary

Yorkshire Water is seeking a Senior Planner (SRO) to join the Asset Delivery PMO Team in Leeds. You will help establish the SRO PMO, lead planning for a £3bn water infrastructure programme, and ensure regulatory compliance, efficiency, and safety across projects.

Reporting to Planning Manager, you will set up holistic, scalable project governance, align with RAPID requirements, and support senior leaders with expert scheduling guidance in a hybrid, permanent role.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 10 years’ experience in Planning.

Responsibilities

• Schedule Management: Create and maintain complex, integrated programme schedules and work breakdown structures.
• Compliance & Governance: Align timelines with Ofwat’s gated process and internal corporate standards and requirements.
• Baseline & EVM: Build resource-loaded baselines suitable for Earned Value Management (EVM).
• Partner Oversight: Validate third‑party contractor schedules against NEC contractual parameters.
• Performance Tracking: Monitor progress using SPI/CPI metrics and produce executive dashboards.
• Risk & Scenario Planning: Run what-if scenarios, resolve schedule slippage, and mitigate bottlenecks.
• Cross-Functional Unity: Collaborate with Cost, Risk, and Commercial teams to manage change controls.
• Advisory Leadership: Provide planning guidance to senior leaders and project managers.

Skills

Schedule management

Compliance & governance

Baseline & EVM

Partner oversight

Performance tracking

Risk & scenario planning

Cross-functional collaboration

Advisory leadership

Job description

Select how often (in days) to receive an alert:

Hello! Thanks for stopping by. Let us tell you about all the great reasons to join us here at Yorkshire Water:

• Annual incentive related bonus (up to 15% of annual salary)
• Attractive pension scheme (up to 12% company contribution)
• Life assurance cover of 4 times pensionable salary
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays – plus two extra wellness days!
• A great benefits package – choose from health cash plan scheme, critical illness insurance, dental insurance, life assurance flex and partner cover.
• Retail savings scheme
• Online GP service, cycle to work scheme, gym membership discounts and many more!

Location:

Leeds Valley Park (LS10), hybrid working (2 to 3 office days a week as required)

Work type:

Permanent. 37 hours per week, Monday – Friday.

We have an exciting opportunity for a senior professional role within the Asset Delivery PMO Team at Yorkshire Water and be a part of helping Yorkshire Water to provide the best service to our customers. Could this be you?

What we do:

Everyone has an idea of what a water company does. Here in Yorkshire, we make sure that over 5.4 million people living in the region and the millions of people who visit our region each year, can rely on our services, and have clean and safe drinking water on tap and that their wastewater is taken away. But for us, it’s so much more than this.

We look after communities, protect the environment, and plan to look after Yorkshire’s water, today, tomorrow 24/7, 365 days a year. We provide essential water and wastewater services to every corner of the Yorkshire region, and play a key role in the region’s health, wellbeing, and prosperity.

New environmental legislation, unprecedented levels of investment and changing expectations from customers means that this is an exciting time to discover opportunities within the water industry. The Asset Delivery team deliver Yorkshire Water’s major asset investment projects and programmes and are a key part of how we plan to meet the changing expectations of customers and regulators.

Under our Strategic Resource Options (SRO) programme we will support a programme of major project capital investment across Yorkshire and the wider UK. The Senior Planner (SRO) will be an integral member of the PMO leadership team and will play a critical role in the set‑up of the SRO PMO and the longer-term success of the programme through establishing a holistic and scalable approach to Project, Programme and Business Risk Management.

The SRO PMO will be closely aligned to the core Asset Delivery PMO which sits within the Asset Delivery Directorate at Yorkshire Water. It will also work to fulfil and adhere to the needs of RAPID (the Water Industry joint regulatory body governing the SRO programme).

Where you fit in:

As our Senior Planner (SRO), you will:

Work alongside our Planning Manager to provide planning leadership for a £3bn water infrastructure programme to ensure regulatory compliance, efficiency, and safety.

Core Responsibilities

• Schedule Management: Create and maintain complex, integrated programme schedules and work breakdown structures.
• Compliance & Governance: Align timelines with Ofwat’s gated process and internal corporate standards and requirements.
• Baseline & EVM: Build resource-loaded baselines suitable for Earned Value Management (EVM).
• Partner Oversight: Validate third‑party contractor schedules against NEC contractual parameters.
• Performance Tracking: Monitor progress using SPI/CPI metrics and produce executive dashboards.
• Risk & Scenario Planning: Run "what-if" scenarios, resolve schedule slippage, and proactively mitigate bottlenecks.
• Cross-Functional Unity: Collaborate with Cost, Risk, and Commercial teams to manage change controls.
• Advisory Leadership: Provide expert planning guidance to senior leaders and project managers.

What skills & qualifications you will need:

Minimum of 10 years’ experience in Planning, ideally working on large