Strategic Planning Specialist

Laing O'Rourke; Dartford; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Laing O\'Rourke is recruiting a Strategic Planning Specialist in Dartford to shape and coordinate end-to-end strategic cycles. The role collaborates with strategy, commercial, operational and functional teams to develop data-informed business plans and 5-7 year outlook models.

You will partner across the business to enable informed decision-making, build planning capability, and present insights to executives, with a focus on turning complexity into clear, actionable plans.

Qualifications

• Experience with strategic planning cycles, business planning or long-range modelling in a matrix or complex environment.
• Strong analytical capability and enjoys exploring scenarios and patterns.
• Communicates clearly, with an ability to translate analysis into meaningful insight.
• Builds positive working relationships at all levels and contributes to a collaborative team culture.

Responsibilities

• Lead and improve the organisation's strategic planning framework and annual planning cycle.
• Help teams translate strategic priorities into practical, achievable plans.
• Facilitate conversations that encourage curiosity, challenge, and alignment.
• Build and maintain 5-7 year strategic and financial outlook models.
• Collaborate with Finance to ensure strong alignment between strategy and budgeting.
• Present clear, accessible insights to senior stakeholders.

Skills

Strategic planning

Data analysis

Financial modelling

Stakeholder communication

Tools

Excel

Job description

Strategic Planning Specialist

Location: Dartford
Business Unit: Europe Hub

Laing O'Rourke's purpose is to push the boundaries of what's possible in service of humanity. Our Strategy & Transformation community plays a central role in shaping how we achieve that ambition.

Are you excited by the idea of helping an organisation think long-term, make thoughtful choices, and build future-ready plans? Do you enjoy creating clarity, enabling collaboration, and turning complexity into something meaningful? If so, this could be the role for you.

As a Strategic Planning Specialist, you will shape, coordinate and continuously strengthen Laing O'Rourke's end-to-end strategic cycle. You'll partner across the business to develop high-quality business plans and long-range models that support confident decision-making. This role offers broad exposure, a collaborative environment, and the chance to make a lasting impact.

What will you be doing?

Strategic Planning

• Lead and improve the organisation's strategic planning framework and annual planning cycle.
• Help teams translate strategic priorities into practical, achievable plans.
• Facilitate conversations that encourage curiosity, challenge, and alignment. Ask yourself: Do you enjoy guiding teams through structured thinking and big-picture decision-making?

Business Planning & Partnership

Do you thrive when building relationships across diverse teams and finding common ground?

• Work closely with strategy, commercial, operational and functional colleagues to co-develop data-informed business plans.
• Act as a supportive, thoughtful partner- helping teams connect insights, test assumptions, and identify opportunities.

Long-Range Modelling & Insight

Do you enjoy creating models that tell a story and help people make better decisions?

• Build and maintain 5-7 year strategic and financial outlook models.
• Collaborate with Finance to ensure strong alignment between strategy and budgeting.
• Present clear, accessible insights to senior stakeholders.

Capability Building

• Create tools, templates and processes that uplift planning capability across the organisation.
• Coach and mentor junior team members.

Executive Communication

• Prepare high-quality strategic materials for Executive and Board audiences.

What skills and experience do you bring?

You may come from strategic planning, corporate strategy, consulting, financial planning or another analytical, future-focused role. We are open to people with transferable skills and a commitment to learning.

We're looking for someone who:

• Has experience with strategic planning cycles, business planning or long-range modelling in a matrix or complex environment.
• Brings strong analytical capability and enjoys exploring scenarios and patterns.
• Communicates clearly, with an ability to translate analysis into meaningful insight.
• Builds positive working relationships at all levels and contributes to a collaborative team culture.
• Is comfortable with ambiguity and brings a balanced, thoughtful approach to problem-solving.
• Has experience with financial modelling or data analysis tools.

If you don't meet every requirement, we'd still love to hear from you—your strengths and mindset matter.

What you will help build

• A consistent, repeatable strategic planning process.
• Integrated long-range strategic and financial models.
• Greater strategic capability across teams and levels.
• Strong​er alignment between strategy, business plans and outcomes.
• Clear, insight-driven inputs for executive decision-making.

About Us

Laing O'Rourke are an international engineering and construction company delivering state-of-the-art infrastructure and buildings projects for clients in the UK, Middle East and Australia.

Certainty, reliability, quality - this is what our clients want. And at Laing O'Rourke, we have more than 150 years of experience delivering it. Laing O'Rourke's story is one of energy, passion, ambition, people and teamwork. We harness the power of our experience, stretching back over a century and a half to deliver certainty for our clients.

As part of the Disability Confident scheme, we would like to enable access to candidates with long term conditions and disabilities through the 'Offer an interview scheme'. This supports applicants that meet the essential criteria by offering an interview for the advertised position. Please let us know if you would like to opt in to this scheme and let us know if you require any adjustments for the interview process.