Programme Planner

Summary: The Programme Planner role involves developing and maintaining an integrated master schedule for supplier transitions and internal readiness activities. The position requires collaboration with various stakeholders to ensure effective planning, monitoring, and reporting of project timelines and dependencies. The planner will also manage risks and ensure compliance with governance standards while facilitating communication across technical and senior leadership teams. This role is critical in supporting large-scale IT transformation projects within a regulated environment.

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop, own, and maintain the integrated master schedule covering incumbent supplier exit plans, new contract supplier transition plans, and client's internal readiness activities.
• Break down complex multi supplier scope into clear work packages, milestones, and dependencies.
• Map cross party obligations, commercial dependencies, contractual triggers, and regulatory constraints.
• Maintain schedule baselines and track any variance, slippage, or critical path shifts.
• Support scenario planning (eg, staged vs. fixed commercial switchover dates, alternative transition routes).
• Ensure that planning reflects regulated operating constraints and commercial commitments.
• Collaborate with incumbent and new suppliers to validate activity durations, resource expectations, and sequencing.
• Work with Client technical and operational teams to confirm internal dependencies, readiness criteria, and hand-offs.
• Facilitate multi-stakeholder planning workshops to align timelines, identify potential conflicts, and confirm ownership.
• Support cutover planning, contingency planning, fall-back strategies, and readiness reviews.
• Ensure the IMS reflects current supplier delivery plans and contractual boundaries.
• Manage daily schedule updates, ensuring accuracy of progress, actuals, and forecast impacts across all parties.
• Perform critical path analysis, highlight broken or at-risk dependencies, and escalate impacts early.
• Produce regular dashboards, timelines, and exception reports for programme leadership and senior stakeholders.
• Provide clear insight and challenge where supplier or internal slippage threatens key commercial or regulatory dates.
• Maintain high-quality, audit-ready schedule reporting consistent with regulated industry expectations.
• Ensure all schedules comply with Compass PMO standards, reporting cycles, audit requirements, and governance forums.
• Document planning assumptions, constraints, and supplier obligations.
• Support commercial checkpoints, stage-gates, assurance reviews, and transition readiness assessments.
• Maintain RAID artefacts related to schedule risks, ensuring linkages into the IMS and programme reporting.
• Work closely with Group IT Services, the seven business units, incumbent suppliers, new supplier teams, service transition, and operations.
• Communicate timelines, impacts, and risks clearly across both technical and senior stakeholder groups.
• Manage competing priorities across multiple delivery organisations, ensuring alignment and transparency.
• Coordinate cross-team dependencies, particularly where exit and transition plans interact with internal readiness activities.
• Build trusted relationships with PMs, architects, commercial teams, and supplier leads to drive proactive scheduling discipline.

Key Skills:

• Proven experience as a Project Planner/Scheduler in large scale IT transformation or multi supplier transition programmes.
• Strong proficiency with planning tools such as MS Project, Project Online, or Primavera P6.
• Experience managing schedules across multiple suppliers, including exit and transition planning.
• Strong understanding of service transition, cutover planning, dependency mapping, and readiness gating.
• Ability to interpret complex technical and commercial information and translate it into actionable plans.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management, including senior leaders.
• Ability to work proactively in fast-moving, high pressure environments with competing priorities.
• Demonstrable ability to challenge constructively and highlight risks early.
• Experience in regulated industries (energy, utilities, financial services).
• Familiarity with IT outsource contracts, service models, or commercial transition triggers.
• Exposure to ITIL, service transition, SIAM, or large-scale multi-supplier operating models.
• Understanding of Agile, Waterfall, or hybrid delivery environments.
• Professional planning or project management certifications beneficial (APM, PMI-SP, PRINCE2)

Salary (Rate): £475.00 per day

City: Havant

Country: UK

Working Arrangements: on-site

IR35 Status: undetermined

Seniority Level: undetermined

Industry: IT