About the role

National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) is at the heart of energy in the UK. The electricity we provide gets the nation to work, powers schools and brings energy to life. Our energy network connects the nation, so it’s essential that it’s continually evolving, advancing and improving.  In NGET we are passionate about both operating our network safely and providing highly reliable quality of supply for our customers.

As Planning Optimisation Manager, you will have responsibility for optimising the build of the outage work plan to maximise business outcomes.  You’ll define the work baseline, set targets for your team, and prioritise and plan across the Central Operational Zone, as well as the Overhead Line Portfolio, to efficiently and economically achieve business results.

You will be leading a strategic and economically thinking team to deliver National Grid’s regulatory commitments and broader strategic objectives, requiring a detailed understanding of work attributes and evaluating Cost/Risk/Performance against Portfolio outcomes to output prioritisation decisions.

In addition, you will help to drive change and transformation within the Delivery (Planning) Optimisation Team.

Summary of Key Accountabilities

• Lead a team that will create deliverable work plans that cover everything from asset replacements to large capital projects to inspections, to span the current and future regulatory periods including asset health, customer connections, large investments, incentives and other drivers of work.
• Set the baseline volumes/cost and outcome targets for delivery vehicles.

• Prioritise all works across delivery years and delivery functions.
• Ensure NGET can meet its obligations and timescales, against milestones.
• Engage with other teams to manage and re-optimise plans based on changes.

• Prioritise scenario outputs from the team to determine most value output based on different constraints, limits and targets.
• Analyse and assess the unit cost performance and standard job delivery requirements from the delivery vehicles to drive consistency and efficiency in the plan build.
• Communicate planning decisions and reasoning to all relevant areas, balancing cost vs. risks vs. outcomes.
• Build strategic relationships with internal and external customers and stakeholders on planning process.
• Lead the transformation of data and digitalisation to improve the optimisation outputs.
• Present frequent updates to work plans to internal and external stakeholders.

You’ll be based from our offices in Warwick for 2 days per week and be willing to travel to sites throughout our Central Region, spanning from Warwickshire to Norfolk, Suffolk and North London.  This can be combined with hybrid working from home.

About You

With experience of planning work and transformation and change management, you’ll understand National Grid’s business objectives and its obligations to wider industry participants and regulatory authorities.  An understanding of the constraints and commercial drivers associated with management of the transmission system would be beneficial.

Strong leadership capability, and the ability to build positive relationships at a senior level both internally and with key external stakeholders and customers is essential as are expert presentation and influencing skills.

You’ll ideally have experience or a sound understanding of the UK electricity industry and of the HV transmission network, both regarding its physical operation, its assets, safety elements and an understanding of the commercial/financial context of activities. Additionally, ideally you have some understanding or experience of optimisation modelling.

The ability to work under considerable pressure, remaining calm and focused on the task in hand, maintaining effective communication and effectively lead the team, is also essential.

In addition, you’ll have demonstrable experience of identifying and implementing business improvement initiatives that have led to cost saving and/or improved efficiency.

What's in it for you?

• A salary of £62,000 - £75,000 + Benefits package + Training and Development.
• Annual Performance Based Bonus of up to 15%
• 28 days annual leave plus eight statutory days
• Option to buy/sell holiday days
• Generous contributory pension scheme – we’ll double-match your contribution to a max company contribution of 12%
• Financial support for study relevant to your role
• Flexible benefits: share incentive plan, salary sacrifice car and technology schemes
• Family benefits like back-up care service (six paid days yearly + option to purchase more)

More Information

This role closes on 30th June 2025 however we encourage candidates to submit their application as early as possible and not wait until the published closing date as this can vary.

Don’t meet every single requirement? At National Grid, we are committed to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace for everyone. So if you are excited about this role but your experience or qualifications do not match the job description exactly, we encourage you to apply anyway. You might just be the right person for our growing business in this role or another one.  

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