Senior Planner

About the Role
The Senior Planner is responsible for developing, maintaining, monitoring, and analyzing project programmes across transportation projects, including rail, roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, and associated infrastructure. The role will support Project Managers and Project Controls teams in establishing realistic baseline programmes, monitoring actual progress, identifying schedule risks and delays, forecasting completion dates, and supporting timely corrective actions. The Senior Planner will work closely with engineering disciplines, project management, commercial teams, clients, contractors, joint venture partners, and subconsultants to ensure that project schedules accurately reflect scope, deliverables, contractual requirements, interfaces, and resource constraints.

Key Responsibilities
Project Planning and Scheduling

• Develop detailed project programmes in Primavera P6 and/or other approved planning systems.
• Prepare project Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) aligned with contractual scope, deliverables, project stages, and cost structures.
• Develop baseline programmes covering engineering, design, procurement, construction interfaces, approvals, submissions, and key contractual milestones.
• Establish logical activity relationships, durations, calendars, constraints, milestones, and critical paths.
• Integrate discipline-level programmes into the overall project master schedule.
• Ensure project schedules are consistent with contractual requirements, scope of services, deliverable registers, Design Delivery Plans and/or MIDPs.
• Develop programme assumptions and planning narratives supporting baseline and revised programmes.

Progress Monitoring and Reporting

• Maintain and update project schedules based on actual progress and information received from project teams.
• Conduct regular progress updates with discipline leads, Project Managers, contractors, subconsultants, and other stakeholders.
• Monitor planned versus actual progress and identify schedule deviations at project, discipline, package, and deliverable level.
• Analyse schedule performance and highlight activities affecting contractual and internal milestones.
• Prepare weekly and monthly schedule reports, including:
  • Key milestones;
  • Critical and near-critical activities;
  • Progress against baseline;
  • Schedule variance;
  • Look-ahead programmes;
  • Delayed activities;
  • Key risks and constraints;
  • Forecast completion dates.
• Produce progress S-curves, milestone trackers, dashboards, and other programme visualizations as required.

Schedule Analysis and Forecasting

• Perform critical path and float analysis and identify emerging schedule risks.
• Analyse the impact of delays, scope changes, late approvals, design changes, and interface constraints.
• Develop recovery and mitigation programmes in coordination with Project Managers and discipline leads.
• Undertake scenario planning and schedule sensitivity analysis where required.
• Provide realistic forecasts for key deliverables, milestones, and project completion dates.
• Challenge programme assumptions and progress information where these are inconsistent with available evidence.

Design and Transportation Project Planning

• Develop and maintain detailed design programmes covering various transportation disciplines such as:
  • Civil and infrastructure;
  • Rail systems;
  • Alignment;
  • Structures, bridges, and viaducts;
  • Tunnels;
  • Geotechnical;
  • Stations and facilities;
  • Utilities;
  • Roads and highways;
  • Traffic and transport planning;
  • MEP and systems interfaces.
• Coordinate schedules with design deliverable registers and document submission requirements.
• Monitor design reviews, client comments, authority approvals, interface reviews, and resubmissions.
• Ensure dependencies between disciplines and external stakeholders are properly represented within the programme.
• Support planning of staged design submissions such as concept, preliminary, detailed design, IFC, and other project-specific gateways.

Project Controls Integration

• Coordinate programme information with cost control, earned value, resource planning, and project reporting activities.
• Support alignment between programme progress and Earned Value / project performance measurement.
• Assist in establishing progress measurement methodologies appropriate for design and consultancy projects.
• Work with Project Controls and Finance teams to support revenue forecasting and project financial forecasting where programme information is required.
• Assist Project Managers in identifying schedule-related commercial risks and opportunities.
• Support reconciliation between programme progress, deliverable progress, resource utilization, and financial performance.

Change, Delay and Contractual Support

• Maintain records of schedule changes and their impact on project milestones.
• Assist in evaluating programme implications of variations, additional services, and scope changes.
• Support preparation of Extension of Time and delay-related assessments where required.
• Review contractor or subconsultant programmes and assess compliance with contractual requirements.
• Review schedule submissions, recovery programmes, and progress updates received from third parties.
• Maintain appropriate schedule records and supporting documentation for contractual and commercial purposes.

Coordination and Stakeholder Management

• Facilitate programme review meetings with Project Managers and discipline leads.
• Liaise with client planning teams and other external stakeholders regarding programme status.
• Coordinate programme interfaces between internal teams, JV partners, contractors, and subconsultants.
• Clearly communicate schedule risks and priorities to project leadership.
• Support project teams in improving planning discipline and timely provision of progress information.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering, Construction Management, Project Management, or a related engineering discipline.
• Relevant professional certification such as PMP, PMI-SP, APM, PSP, or equivalent is advantageous.
• Formal Primavera P6 training or certification is preferred.

Business Line: Transportation
Type of contract: Permanent contract
Service Line: Inter - Urban Transport
Region: Middle East and South Asia
Job Family: Engineering Management