Senior Planning Manager

Role overview

Planning and schedule controls

• Develop and maintain detailed schedules aligned with the Integrated Master Schedule, programme milestones, delivery phases, and approved objectives.
• Lead planning and scheduling and ensure deliverables meet planning standards, governance, reporting procedures, and contractual obligations.
• Coordinate schedule integration across stakeholders, contractors, consultants, designers, work packages, and interfaces.
• Establish progress measurement systems using physical progress, weighted milestones, earned value indicators, KPIs, and approved methodologies.
• Produce accurate, timely, and auditable status reports.
• Conduct schedule reviews, forensic assessments, critical path analysis, time impact analysis, and delay analysis.
• Assess contractor schedules, extension-of-time submissions, delay and disruption claims, and recovery programmes against contract provisions.
• Develop and update baseline, look-ahead, recovery, and acceleration schedules and revised delivery strategies.

Risk, tools, and governance

• Use Primavera P6, project management information systems, dashboards, and planning tools to improve visibility and reporting efficiency.
• Identify schedule risks, assess impacts, and develop mitigation, recovery, and acceleration strategies.
• Monitor critical and near-critical activities, float, trends, interfaces, and constraints; escalate emerging issues promptly.
• Maintain standardized planning procedures, reporting templates, schedule coding, progress measurement systems, and governance processes.
• Review contractor and consultant submissions for logical links, resource loading where required, and alignment with approved requirements.
• Maintain schedule narratives, progress evidence, assumptions, constraints, and supporting records for audit and contractual purposes.
• Provide technical guidance and mentoring to planning engineers, schedulers, project controls staff, and project teams.
• Support project reviews, progress meetings, risk workshops, commercial assessments, change control, and executive reporting.

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 multidisciplinary programmes with multiple contractors, consultants, interfaces, and delivery packages.
• Strong Primavera P6 experience and practical expertise in schedule and delay analysis, critical path, time impact, and extension-of-time evaluations.
• Experience in progress measurement, earned value, weighted milestones, performance reporting, project controls systems, contract administration, claims, and change management.
• Postgraduate qualification in a related project, construction, engineering, or planning field is advantageous.
• Middle East experience and professional membership or certification are advantageous, not essential.

Technical skills and competencies

• Advanced Primavera P6 and scheduling capability; knowledge of integrated master scheduling, programme controls, and construction planning methodologies.
• Knowledge of critical path method, schedule logic, float analysis, resource loading, and schedule performance measurement.
• Proficiency in project management information systems, business intelligence dashboards, Microsoft Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Ability to interpret contracts, programme requirements, and planning provisions; strong analytical, reporting, and presentation skills.
• Strategic planning, problem-solving, accuracy, commercial and contractual awareness, communication, stakeholder management, leadership, and team development.
• Able to manage priorities and deadlines, challenge schedule information objectively, and maintain integrity and governance.