Project Planning Analyst

Are you an organised and proactive Project Planner looking to make a real impact? Joining a fast-paced and collaborative environment on a 6–9 month fixed-term contract, you’ll play a key role in supporting the planning and coordination of critical programmes that help deliver a reliable and sustainable water service to millions of customers.

What you’ll be doing as a Project Planner

Reporting to the Business Project Manager within the Debt Management System Replacement Programme, you will lead the development, maintenance, and assurance of integrated programme plans across multiple workstreams. You’ll track progress against agreed baselines, identify schedule and resource risks, and provide clear planning insights to support informed decision-making. This role is key to ensuring successful delivery across the programme — driving accuracy, efficiency, timely execution, and budget control.

The key responsibilities are:

• Develop and maintain integrated programme, project and workstream plans, covering scope, milestones, dependencies, critical path and key deliverables.
• Establish and control schedule baselines, ensuring changes are assessed, approved and reflected accurately.
• Maintain planning standards, templates and governance, including assumptions, reporting cadence and version control.
• Work closely with Project Managers, Product Owners, Business Analysts, technical leads and third parties to agree accurate estimates, sequencing and resourcing.
• Track progress against plan, analyse variances and trends, and provide clear forecasts on milestone confidence, slippage and recovery options.
• Identify and manage schedule, dependency and resource risks, supporting mitigation planning and tracking actions to closure.
• Produce high‑quality programme reporting, including weekly/monthly status packs, dashboards and RAID updates, ensuring data integrity and consistency.
• Facilitate planning workshops and schedule reviews, constructively challenging assumptions and driving clarity on next steps.
• Provide scenario planning and impact assessments to support decisions on scope, sequencing, resourcing and delivery approach.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of planning processes, tools and good practice.

Key deliverables

• An integrated, baselined programme plan with aligned project and workstream schedules, clear milestones and a critical path.
• Regular planning insights and reports, including schedule health, milestone confidence, variance analysis and forward look.
• Robust schedule risk and dependency logs, with agreed mitigation actions tracked to completion.
• Clear impact assessments and scenario plans to support informed delivery decisions.

Location: Hybrid – Walnut Court, SN2 8BN.

Hours: 36 hours per week, Monday – Friday, 9am -5pm.

To thrive in this role, the essential criteria you’ll need are:

• Confident using MS Project, Excel and standard reporting tools.
• Proven experience in project or programme planning, scheduling or PMO within complex change or technology environments.
• Strong planning and control skills, including building plans, managing baselines, dependencies, critical path and change.
• High attention to detail, with strong analytical skills to interpret progress, forecast outcomes and highlight risks.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder skills, with the confidence to challenge. assumptions and escalate issues when needed.
• Ability to manage competing priorities, work under pressure and meet reporting deadlines.

Desirable

• Experience supporting large‑scale system or business transformation programmes, ideally in regulated or public‑sector environments.
• Understanding of change and implementation planning.
• Knowledge of RAID management or related delivery controls.

What’s in it for you?

• Competitive salary starting from £52,000 per annum, dependent on skills and experience.
• 26 days holiday per year, increasing to 30 with the length of service. (plus bank holidays)
• Performance-related pay plan directly linked to company performance measures and targets.
• Generous Pension Scheme through AON.
• Access to lots of benefits to help you take care of you and your family’s health and wellbeing, and your finances – from annual health MOTs and access to physiotherapy and counselling, to Cycle to Work schemes, shopping vouchers and life assurance.

Find out more about our benefits and perks (Please note different T&Cs apply if on secondment)

Who are we?

We’re the UK’s largest water and wastewater company, with more than 16 million customers relying on us every day to supply water for their taps and toilets. We want to build a better future for all, helping our customers, communities, people, and the planet to thrive. It’s a big job and we’ve got a long way to go, so we need help from passionate and skilled people, committed to making a difference and getting us to where we want to be in the years and decades to come.

Learn more about our purpose and values

Working at Thames Water

Thames Water is a unique, rewarding, and diverse place to work, where every day you can make a difference, yet no day is the same. As part of our family, you’ll enjoy meaningful career opportunities, flexible working arrangements and excellent benefits.

If you’re looking for a sustainable and successful career where you can make a daily difference to millions of people’s lives while helping to protect the world of water for future generations, we’ll be here to support you every step of the way. Together, we can build a better future for our customers, our region, and our planet.

Real purpose, real support, real opportunities. Come and join the Thames Water family. Why choose us? Learn more.

We’re committed to being a great, diverse, and inclusive place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and want to ensure you feel supported throughout the recruitment process. If you need any adjustments, whether that’s extra time, accessible formats, or anything else just let us know, we’re here to help and support.

When a crisis happens, we all rally around to support our customers. As part of Team Thames, you’ll have the opportunity to sign up to support our customers on the frontline as an ambassador. Full training will be given for what is undoubtedly an incredibly rewarding experience. It’s also a great opportunity to learn more about our business and meet colleagues.

Disclaimer: Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.