Senior Planning Manager

Role overview

Planning and project controls

• Develop and maintain detailed schedules aligned with the Integrated Master Schedule, programme milestones, delivery phases, and approved objectives.
• Ensure planning deliverables comply with planning standards, governance, reporting procedures, and contractual obligations.
• Coordinate schedule integration across work packages, contractors, consultants, designers, and project interfaces.
• Establish progress measurement using physical progress, weighted milestones, earned value indicators, and KPIs.
• Produce timely, accurate, auditable status reports for project teams, senior management, and stakeholders.
• Review schedules and conduct 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.
• Identify schedule risks, constraints, and critical or near-critical activities; assess impacts, develop mitigation strategies, and escalate emerging issues.
• Apply standardized planning procedures, reporting templates, coding structures, progress measurement systems, and governance processes.
• Provide technical guidance and mentoring to planning engineers, schedulers, project controls personnel, and project team members.
• Support project reviews, progress meetings, risk workshops, commercial assessments, change control, executive reporting, and accurate planning records.

Required qualifications and experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering or a closely related engineering discipline.
• At least 15 years of professional experience in project planning, project controls, scheduling, or construction management.
• Extensive experience in large-scale construction, infrastructure, engineering, or development projects.
• Experience managing complex multidisciplinary programmes with multiple contractors, consultants, interfaces, and delivery packages.
• Strong Primavera P6 scheduling experience.
• Practical experience in schedule analysis, delay analysis, critical path assessment, time impact analysis, and extension-of-time evaluations.
• Experience with progress measurement, earned value management, weighted milestones, performance reporting, and project controls systems.
• Experience supporting contract administration, claims assessment, change management, and evaluation of contractual entitlement.
• Postgraduate qualification in a related field is advantageous; Middle East project experience is desirable but not essential.
• Professional membership or certification from a recognized engineering, project management, or construction body is advantageous.

Technical skills and competencies

• Advanced Primavera P6 scheduling capability and understanding of integrated master scheduling and programme controls.
• Knowledge of construction planning methods, project controls, reporting standards, critical path method, schedule logic, float analysis, resource loading, and schedule performance measurement.
• Proficiency in project management information systems, business intelligence dashboards, and Microsoft Office, particularly Excel and PowerPoint.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, reporting, presentation, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Demonstrates leadership, attention to detail, commercial and contractual awareness, integrity, and a structured approach to governance and compliance.
• Able to manage competing priorities and deadlines and challenge schedule information constructively and objectively.