Job summary
Universal Destinations & Experiences (UDX), a division of Comcast NBCUniversal, is building a world class theme park and resort in Bedford, after the UK government agreed a package of support to unlock this £6.4bn inward investment.
Opening in 2031, the park will become the UK’s most popular visitor attraction with an estimated 8.5m visitors a year, supporting the creation of 8,000 new jobs and delivering an estimated £50b in economic benefits.
Bedford Visitor Attraction Programme is the DCMS-led programme to support delivery of the park by UDX, and its supporting infrastructure, and facilitate cross-government collaboration with local authorities across the region to ensure the wider benefits are realised.
You'll be joining us at an exciting time as part of an innovative and ambitious team, working hard to embed disciplined delivery and collaborative behaviours to ensure successful delivery of the different elements of the programme.
As a team we’re committed to supporting your professional development. As well as securing the APM Project Management Qualification, you’ll be encouraged to develop your leadership skills, work with a mentor and build your professional network to support your future career progression.
We currently have around 100 project delivery professionals within DCMS and around 18,000 working across Government. These colleagues work as project, programme and portfolio managers or in specialist roles such as risk and issues managers and project planners.
A career in the Government Project Delivery Profession enables you to make a difference; improving our public services while building and developing your professional skills. Your career here could take you from climate change projects to building new hospitals or schools to equipping our armed forces. The variety and significance of roles is unparalleled.
Our mission is to attract and retain the best individuals by providing a rewarding career, supporting continuous professional development through our robust learning offering which includes accredited and apprenticeship qualifications, and shaping our community in a way that you can all feel inspired by.
Job description
As a Project Planner/Scheduler, you will primarily be responsible for developing, maintaining and continuously improving an integrated project delivery schedule and Integrated Delivery Plan (IDP), bringing together plans from multiple teams, delivery partners and external stakeholders into a single coherent programme view.
You will be comfortable working within ambiguity, influencing stakeholders without direct authority, and translating complex information into clear, actionable plans.
You will be responsible for:
- Developing and maintaining a detailed Integrated Delivery Plan covering all major workstreams, milestones, dependencies and critical paths.
- Building strong working relationships with project managers, policy leads, delivery partners, local authorities, government departments and suppliers.
- Working collaboratively with delivery partners to provide essential planning expertise to support effective decision-making, identifying delivery risks and dependencies, and ensure the programme remains on track to deliver its strategic objectives.
- Provide effective challenge to ensure delivery partner plans are realistic, robust and achievable.
- Monitor progress against agreed milestones and delivery commitments, identifying schedule risks, emerging issues and slippages, and proposing mitigation actions where appropriate.
- Producing accurate, timely and high-quality planning products, dashboards and reports for programme boards and senior stakeholders to inform programme decision-making.
- Assessing the impact of change requests on the integrated delivery schedule and critical path, and ensuring planning assumptions, constraints and dependencies are documented and regularly reviewed.
- Supporting the development of programme controls and PMO capability within DCMS PMO, drive improvements in planning processes, tools and reporting and contribute to lessons learned activities and continuous improvement initiatives.
Person specification
The ideal candidate would have the following key skills and experience, please note that desirable skills will only be used in the event of tied candidates:
Essential criteria:
- Experience working across multiple external stakeholders in a complex major programme environment to develop and maintain integrated programme plans.
- Ability to challenge and assess assumptions to ensure plans are realistic and achievable.
- Ability to proactively identify and monitor dependencies, conduct critical path analysis and track milestones to level 2/3.
- Ability to produce clear and concise reports to support data-led decision-making, change control and governance processes.
- Experience using planning and scheduling tools such as Primavera P6, Microsoft Project or comparable software.
- Excellent organisational skills and the ability to work independently while contributing effectively to a team.
Desirable Skills:
- A recognised and relevant project/programme management qualification
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £43,065, Department for Culture, Media and Sport contributes £12,475 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
DCMS values its staff and offers a wide range of benefits to everyone who works here. We’re committed to developing talent, and supporting colleagues to have great careers in our department. To support with that, some of the benefits we offer include:
Flexible working arrangements and hybrid working - DCMS staff work on a flexible basis with time spent in offices, and time spent working from home
26.5 days annual leave on entry, increasing to 31.5 days after 5 years’ service
A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
Access to the Edenred employee benefits system which offers discounts to popular retailers and access to various useful resources such as financial and savings advice
3 days of paid volunteering leave
Up to 9 months maternity leave on full pay + generous paternity and adoption leave
Staff reward and recognition bonuses that operate throughout the year
Occupational sick pay
Access to the Employee Assistance Programme which offers staff 24/7 confidential support and resources such as counselling, debt guidance and management advice
Active and engaged staff networks to join including the LGBT+, Ethnic Diversity, Mental Health and Wellbeing and Gender Equality Networks
Exceptional learning and development opportunities that you can explore alongside your day to day work
Season ticket loan, cycle to work scheme and much more!
Things you need to know
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles , and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.
To apply for this vacancy, you will need to submit the following documents which will assessed against the experience success profile:
A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you provide employment history that relates to the essential and desirable criteria, and that any gaps in employment history within the last 2 years are explained. The CV should not exceed more than 2 x A4 pages and you should insert your CV into the "Job History" section on the Civil Service Jobs application form.
A Statement of Suitability (max 500 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role in reference to the essential requirements highlighted. You may also choose to reference the desirable skills listed however these will not be considered in the assessment of your application except in circumstances where there are a high number and calibre of candidates.
Behaviours
- Making Effective Decisions
- Delivering at Pace
- Communicating and Influencing
- Working Together