Workforce Planning Manager

Realise HR; Preston; Hybrid; USD 53,533 - 107,066; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Workforce Planning Manager to drive strategic staffing decisions and optimize workforce capabilities. This role involves partnering with leadership to align workforce planning with project demands, leading lifecycle planning, and developing tools that inform critical business decisions. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record in workforce planning within a complex environment, demonstrating strong stakeholder management and the ability to translate data into actionable insights. This is an exciting opportunity to shape the future of a leading business unit in the civil engineering sector, offering a chance to make a significant impact.

Qualifications

• Experience in workforce planning in a complex, project-based environment.
• Strong stakeholder management skills and ability to influence at all levels.

Responsibilities

• Aligning workforce capability with project demand and optimising staffing levels.
• Leading workforce planning across capability reviews, demand forecasting, and gap analysis.

Skills

Stakeholder Management

Workforce Planning

Data Analysis

Strategic Planning

Operational Planning

Tools

Spreadsheets

Job description

Role: Workforce Planning Manager

Location: Cumbria

Employment Type: 9 Month FTC, Remote (with office twice monthly)

This is an exciting opportunity with a major UK Civil Engineering and Construction business. Together, we're currently looking for a Workforce Planning Manager to help shape the future of one of their leading business units. You will be the driving force behind ensuring this business has the right people, in the right place, at the right time — now and for the future.

What You’ll Be Doing:

1. Partnering with Directors, SLT, project teams, and the wider People function to align workforce capability with project demand and optimise staffing levels.
2. Leading workforce planning across the full lifecycle: capability reviews, demand forecasting, mobility planning and gap analysis.
3. Influencing and guiding on workforce planning strategy, helping embed best practices across business units.
4. Developing and managing workforce planning tools and systems that inform key business decisions.
5. Collaborating with the wider People Team on mobility and redeployment strategies.
6. Delivering insightful reports and analysis that help shape business unit planning and resource allocation.
7. Supporting strategic initiatives, including recruitment and organisational change, to keep us ahead of the curve.
8. Support and deliver on contingency plans for workforce disruptions.

About You:

You’re experienced, pragmatic, and have led workforce planning in a complex, project-based environment, bringing stakeholders along for the journey.

1. You understand both operational and strategic workforce planning, and can confidently work at all levels — from the granular to the visionary.
2. You’re comfortable managing planning via spreadsheets (no fancy tools here — yet) and know how to use them to drive clear, actionable decisions.
3. You’ve built planning processes before, brought stakeholders together, and created usable insights from fragmented data.
4. You naturally work across boundaries, challenging siloed approaches and embedding sustainable workforce practices.
5. You bring strong stakeholder management skills — from partnering with peers to influencing SLT — and know how to articulate workforce data in a way that drives action.
6. You’re a senior operator looking for a role with space to shape and evolve. You see what good looks like and can lead others towards it.

If this sounds like you, we’d love to hear from you!

Don't meet every single requirement? At Realise, we are dedicated to helping our clients build diverse, inclusive and authentic workplaces, so if you're excited about this role but your past experience doesn't align perfectly with every requirement, we would encourage you to apply anyway! You might be just the candidate we're looking for!