Senior Train Timetable Planning Lead

FirstGroup; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Free Travel for you and a nominated on

75% discount off season tickets

Discounts on European rail services

First Xclusives – benefits portal

Employee Assistance Programme

Job summary

First Rail London is seeking a Senior Train Planner to lead the Train Planning team, shaping timetable change and short term planning while driving a data-led culture. You will manage workload, align with the Train Crew Diagramming Team Leader, and own KPI reporting to benchmark performance.

You will embed continuous improvement, collaborate with Performance and BI teams, and contribute to industrial action and adverse weather plans. Stratford-based hybrid role with strong stakeholder engagement.

Qualifications

• Proven track record of effectively leading and motivating teams in a Train Planning Environment (TOC or Network Rail).
• Experience of working with industry train planning processes and systems.
• Experience of building effective and influencing relationships with key stakeholders.
• Understanding of First Rail London and Network Rail routes and service patterns.
• Knowledge of rail industry planning processes.
• Highly organised and self-motivated with ability to work under own direction.
• Excellent IT literacy.
• Excellent political awareness.
• Good data literacy.
• Effective and persuasive written and verbal communication style.
• Ability to work effectively and lead a team to work well under pressure.
• Educated to degree level or equivalent experience.

Responsibilities

• Provide effective day-to-day management of the Train Planning team to produce a high quality planning product, maintaining effective workload and resource planning to achieve industry timescales.
• Oversee all Timetable Change activity working closely with the Train Crew Diagramming Team Leader ensuring all elements of timing and diagramming are in line with business requirements.
• Ownership of the KPI reporting and benchmarking for the STP teams to measure the performance of train planning processes, implementing improvement actions plans if required.
• Lead on planning assurance processes such as Timetable Change and Christmas Plans.
• Lead on the delivery of Industrial Action and Adverse Weather plan development and implementation.
• Work in partnership with the Performance team to review and agree proposed changes to the Train Plan and ensure that changes are sense-checked within the context of the overall train plan.
• Establish and foster a culture of continuous improvement by leading your team to identify and implement improvements to train planning processes and systems.
• Lead the STP Train Planning teams by example, holding high standards of behavior in line with Arriva's values and the Arriva Rail London Vision and Strategy.
• Partner with the Operations Leadership Team to provide direct insight in order to drive improvements through data led analysis.
• Lead a team to deliver periodic reporting and in-depth analysis to all Operations departments.
• Lead in embedding a ‘performance culture' within the business, in partnership with the Business Intelligence team, using business intelligence tools and other technology to provide accurate and insightful dashboards.
• Oversee the reporting, analysis and review of key departmental metrics on a periodic basis by owning Directorate level reporting routines, including: Driver Resource Plan KPIs, Balanced Scorecards and Business Reviews

Skills

Team leadership

Train planning

Stakeholder management

Data literacy

IT literacy

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Job description

First Rail London is seeking a Senior Train Planner to lead the Train Planning team, shaping timetable change and short term planning while driving a data-led culture. You will manage workload, align with the Train Crew Diagramming Team Leader, and own KPI reporting to benchmark performance.

You will embed continuous improvement, collaborate with Performance and BI teams, and contribute to industrial action and adverse weather plans. Stratford-based hybrid role with strong stakeholder engagement.