Strategic Planning Manager, Water Infrastructure Delivery

Alexander Associates Technical Recruitment; England; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Alexander Associates Technical Recruitment is seeking an experienced Planning Manager to support planning, integration, monitoring and control of major capital projects. The role sits within the programme delivery team to ensure schedules are accurate and realistic across disciplines and workstreams.

The successful candidate will drive programme certainty, identify risks and opportunities, and ensure activities align with regulatory, commercial, and strategic objectives across water

Qualifications

• Degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Project Controls, Planning, Project Management, or a related discipline.
• Proven experience managing and integrating programmes within water infrastructure, utilities or major civil infrastructure.
• Strong track record of developing and maintaining complex integrated schedules across multi-disciplinary teams.
• Experience within NEC and/or FIDIC contracts.

Responsibilities

• Develop, maintain, and control integrated programme schedules across complex, multi-disciplinary projects.
• Ensure the Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) aligns with programme objectives, milestones, contractual commitments, and delivery strategies.
• Review and challenge programme logic, sequencing, assumptions, and dependencies to ensure schedule accuracy.
• Identify programme gaps, interface issues, conflicts, and constraints that may impact delivery.
• Work with internal teams and external partners to resolve scheduling issues and ensure full programme integration.
• Maintain schedule integrity through design, pre-construction, delivery, and completion phases.
• Provide independent challenge on programme risks affecting milestones, budgets, regulatory obligations, or contractual commitments.
• Act as an early warning function by identifying critical path changes, float erosion, emerging delays, and interface risks.
• Monitor programme performance and identify delivery risks and trends.
• Escalate significant programme concerns, providing clear and actionable information to stakeholders.
• Translate complex schedule data into meaningful insights that support business decisions.
• Produce programme reports, dashboards, and updates for senior leadership and executive stakeholders.
• Support scenario planning, forecasting, schedule modelling, and schedule risk assessments.
• Help stakeholders understand the impact of planning decisions and delivery risks.
• Promote ownership and accountability for programme commitments.
• Encourage collaborative planning and proactive problem-solving across project teams.
• Support alignment between programme controls, risk management, change control, governance, and delivery objectives.
• Monitor and report programme performance metrics to provide visibility of project health and delivery progress.
• Analyse performance trends and identify areas requiring intervention.
• Support governance processes and ensure schedules meet project control standards.
• Contribute to programme assurance activities and reporting requirements.
• Support the preparation and quality assurance of schedules used for QSRA.
• Ensure schedule assumptions, logic, durations, and risk drivers align with programme risk models.
• Provide schedule forecasts, confidence assessments, and programme performance information to commercial and risk teams.
• Support baseline management, contingency planning, change control, and schedule governance activities.

Skills

Analytical thinking

Stakeholder management

Communication skills

Problem solving

Attention to detail

Organisational skills

Education

Degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Project Controls, Planning, Project Management, or related

Job description

Alexander Associates Technical Recruitment is seeking an experienced Planning Manager to support planning, integration, monitoring and control of major capital projects. The role sits within the programme delivery team to ensure schedules are accurate and realistic across disciplines and workstreams.

The successful candidate will drive programme certainty, identify risks and opportunities, and ensure activities align with regulatory, commercial, and strategic objectives across water