Senior Planning Manager

Role overview

Responsibilities

• Develop and align detailed schedules with the Integrated Master Schedule, milestones, delivery phases, and project objectives.
• Lead planning activities and ensure compliance with planning standards, governance, reporting procedures, and contracts.
• Coordinate schedule integration across work packages and project interfaces.
• Establish progress measurement systems, including physical progress, weighted milestones, earned value indicators, and KPIs.
• Produce auditable status reports; conduct schedule reviews, critical path, forensic, time impact, and delay analysis.
• Assess contractor schedules, extension-of-time submissions, claims, recovery programmes, and contractual entitlement.
• Develop and update baseline, look-ahead, recovery, and acceleration schedules.
• Use Primavera P6, project information systems, dashboards, and other planning tools.
• Identify schedule risks, monitor critical and near-critical activities and constraints, and develop mitigation and recovery strategies.
• Maintain planning procedures, templates, coding structures, progress systems, and governance; provide guidance to planning and project controls staff.
• Support project reviews, meetings, risk workshops, commercial assessments, change control, and executive reporting.
• Maintain schedule narratives, progress evidence, assumptions, constraints, and records for audit and contractual purposes.

Required qualifications and experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering or a closely related engineering discipline.
• At least 15 years of experience in project planning, project controls, scheduling, or construction management.
• Extensive large-scale construction, infrastructure, engineering, or development project experience.
• Experience managing complex multidisciplinary programmes with multiple contractors, consultants, interfaces, and delivery packages.
• Strong Primavera P6 experience and practical expertise in schedule, delay, critical path, time impact, and extension-of-time analysis.
• Experience in progress measurement, earned value, performance reporting, project controls, contract administration, claims, and change management.
• Middle East project experience is desirable, not essential.
• Postgraduate study and recognized professional membership or certification are advantageous.

Technical skills and competencies

• Knowledge of integrated master scheduling, programme controls, construction planning, project controls, and reporting standards.
• Knowledge of critical path method, schedule logic, float analysis, resource loading, and performance measurement.
• Ability to interpret contracts, programme requirements, and planning provisions.
• Proficiency in project management information systems, business intelligence dashboards, and Microsoft Office, particularly Excel and PowerPoint.
• The role calls for analytical, reporting, presentation, problem-solving, stakeholder management, leadership, communication, attention to detail, and commercial awareness.
• Ability to manage priorities and deadlines, challenge schedule information objectively, and maintain integrity and governance.