Senior Planner (Consultant)

Location: London (Client Site)
Security Clearance: Active UK Developed Vetting (DV) Clearance required
Employment Type: Consultant/Permanent
Working Pattern: Client-facing role requiring multiple days per week onsite in London, with occasional travel as required.

We're looking for an experienced Senior Planner to support the establishment of a new Project Management Office (PMO) within a highly secure government environment.

This is an excellent opportunity for an accomplished planning professional who enjoys working on complex programmes, influencing senior stakeholders, and building robust planning capability from the ground up.

You'll play a key role in developing integrated delivery plans, providing programme insight, and enabling informed decision-making across a major government transformation programme.

As a Senior Planner, you'll be responsible for:

• Developing and maintaining integrated programme and project schedules across multiple workstreams.
• Building detailed delivery plans that support effective programme governance and reporting.
• Establishing planning standards, processes, and scheduling best practice within a newly formed PMO.
• Monitoring programme progress against key milestones, critical paths, and delivery objectives.
• Identifying schedule risks, constraints, and dependencies, recommending mitigation strategies where required.
• Producing high-quality planning reports, milestone dashboards, and executive-level schedule analysis.
• Facilitating planning workshops with project managers, delivery teams, and technical stakeholders.
• Supporting scenario planning and schedule optimisation activities.
• Contributing planning expertise to governance forums and programme assurance activities.
• Working collaboratively with PMO colleagues to ensure planning data supports accurate reporting and forecasting.
• Driving continuous improvement across planning processes and programme controls.

You'll bring:

• Active UK Developed Vetting (DV) Clearance (essential).
• Significant experience developing and managing integrated project schedules within complex government, defence, or secure environments.
• A strong understanding of programme controls, PMO functions, and governance.
• Experience managing programme dependencies, critical paths, and delivery planning.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Strong stakeholder management skills with the confidence to engage senior leadership.
• Experience producing executive planning reports and schedule analysis.
• Advanced Microsoft Project and Microsoft Office skills.
• Experience with enterprise planning tools such as Primavera P6 or equivalent is highly desirable.

We're particularly interested in candidates with:

• PRINCE2 Practitioner, MSP Practitioner, APM PMQ, or equivalent qualifications.
• Experience supporting PMO mobilisation or organisational transformation.
• Previous consultancy experience delivering planning services into government clients.
• Familiarity with government governance, assurance, and delivery frameworks.

You'll be a strategic and organised planning professional who enjoys solving complex delivery challenges and working collaboratively across multidisciplinary teams.

You'll be comfortable influencing senior stakeholders, challenging constructively where needed, and helping to build planning capability that enables successful programme delivery.

If you're looking to apply your planning expertise on high-profile, mission-critical programmes within a secure government environment, we'd love to hear from you.

Please note: Due to the nature of this role, applicants must hold active UK Developed Vetting (DV) clearance at the time of application.

Reasonable Adjustments:

Respect and equality are core values to us. We are proud of the diverse and inclusive community we have built, and we welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and perspectives. Our success is driven by our people, united by the spirit of partnership to deliver the best resourcing solutions for our clients.

If you need any help or adjustments during the recruitment process for any reason, please let us know when you apply or talk to the recruiters directly so we can support you.