The posting
Purpose of the Role
The Project Controls Director holds overall accountability for designing, deploying, and directing a comprehensive, fit-for-purpose project controls system for a new nuclear new-build project.
The primary objective is to give the Project Director and executive leadership an objective, evidence-based picture of project health across scope, milestones, expenditure, actual progress, risks, and emerging changes. Operating within approved project governance, the role ensures that project data directly informs timely, corrective decisions rather than serving solely as historical documentation.
The Director establishes the governance baseline linking Work Breakdown Structures (WBS), organisational accountabilities, budgets, integrated schedules, and performance analytics. Controls must remain proportionate: rigorous enough to spotlight critical-path risks and schedule erosion early, yet sufficiently streamlined to drive action across site delivery teams without excessive administrative burden.
Core Accountabilities
1. Integrated Planning & Scheduling
- Build and govern an overarching programme WBS that defines all deliverable work packages, establishing the sole baseline for budget allocation, scope assignment, schedule tracking, and formal progress reporting.
- Oversee a structured schedule framework spanning Level 1 (milestones), Level 2 (cross-discipline coordination), Level 3 (detailed project control), Level 4 (field execution and look-ahead plans), and targeted Level 5 detail where site coordination demands it.
- Define standardized planning standards, coding conventions, working calendars, update rhythms, and schedule integrity rules.
- Maintain logical alignment across all life-cycle stages: nuclear licensing, engineering design, global procurement, off-site manufacturing, civil construction, cold/hot commissioning, and operational handover.
- Establish approved baselines for scope, cost, and schedule; prevent informal or unapproved baseline adjustments.
- Ensure all delivery plans are resource-loaded, risk-informed, realistic, and fully endorsed by the managers responsible for execution.
- Drive rolling 90-day look-ahead schedules focusing specifically on high-priority interfaces, site access constraints, and near-critical paths.
2. Multi-Contractor Schedule Harmonisation
- Integrate and align independent schedules delivered by EPC contractors, nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) vendors, key equipment fabricators, and internal teams into a single Master Schedule.
- Systematically audit contractor schedules for logic integrity, achievable productivity assumptions, sequence realism, and contractual compliance.
- Ensure structural alignment among schedule data, commercial commitments, financial budgets, and project risks.
3. Progress Tracking & Performance Verification
- Establish verifiable, physical progress-measurement rules across each work package to prevent optimistic or subjective reporting.
- Monitor live project performance against approved baseline parameters for time, expenditure, workforce deployment, deliverables, and quality milestones.
- Maintain auditable project data covering actual start/finish dates, remaining durations, estimate-to-complete (ETC) figures, and committed funds.
- Detect and call out emerging delivery bottlenecks, out-of-sequence activities, declining float values, and shifts in the primary critical path.
- Hold work package leads accountable for crafting and executing recovery initiatives whenever variances occur; escalate critical deviations immediately.
- Produce milestone forecasts grounded strictly in current field data and valid schedule logic rather than unverified best-case assumptions.
4. Cost Engineering & Budget Control
- Establish and govern the time-phased cost control baseline tied directly to the WBS, control accounts, contract commitments, and integrated schedule.
- Supervise committed expenditure, incurred costs, accruals, cash-flow models, Estimate at Completion (EAC), and project contingencies.
- Ensure unified coding structures and seamless reconciliation across controls, financial accounting, contract management, and commercial systems.
- Use Earned Value Management (EVM) to track cost/schedule indices, isolate root causes of performance deviations, and model projected outcomes.
- Publish regular cost-variance reports that explicitly detail drivers, financial impacts, named owners, and planned corrective measures.
- Quantify the cost implications of proposed scope changes, contractor claims, delay events, and schedule acceleration strategies before governance approvals.
- Maintain strict change logs so that only sanctioned scope adjustments adjust the baseline budget or contingency allowances.
- Challenge unrealistic financial estimates and promptly raise risks of budget pressure or early contingency exhaustion.
5. Critical Path & Delay Management
- Perform ongoing Critical Path Method (CPM) analyses to track schedule vulnerability.
- Identify field constraints, inter-contract handoffs, and resource bottlenecks that threaten critical path tasks.
- Model recovery scenarios and acceleration options to support informed trade-off decisions.
6. Risk-Informed Project Planning
- Embed risk management directly into daily scheduling, budget forecasting, and scope-change evaluations rather than treating it as a siloed exercise.
- Keep executive visibility focused on the high-impact risks that threaten plant safety, quality certification, licensing milestones, cost, or target commercial operation dates.
- Ensure every material risk has a designated owner, a scheduled mitigation workflow, and defined residual impact ratings.
- Evaluate schedule and cost contingency adequacy using practical construction insight combined with quantitative risk analysis (such as QSRA).
- Drive risk reviews toward practical mitigation actions, formal escalations, or explicit acceptance rather than passive list-keeping.
7. Interface Management
- Align scheduling boundaries and handoffs across key functional stakeholders:
- System Engineering & Design
- Global Supply Chain & Procurement
- Site Construction & Civil Works
- Plant Commissioning
- Nuclear Safety Licensing & Regulatory Approvals
- Plant Operations Readiness
- Owner & Government Stakeholders
- Ensure interface points, battery limits, and transfer milestones are accurately mapped inside the master logic network.
8. Executive Reporting & Transparency
- Produce concise, exception-focused reports highlighting milestone projections, float movement, cost run-rates, principal project risks, and decisions requiring executive intervention.
- Publish a unified monthly project controls briefing featuring detailed variance analyses, schedule logic adjustments, scope movements, and forward-looking plans.
- Facilitate weekly and monthly controls reviews centered on proactive problem resolution and action item tracking.
- Deliver objective assessments of overall status directly to the Project Director, the Plant Owner, and oversight committees.
9. Change Governance & Controls Architecture
- Evaluate time and cost impacts for every proposed technical revision, commercial variation, or regulatory adjustment prior to approval.
- Serve as a key advisor to the project Change Control Board (CCB), recording all baseline adjustments and rationale.
- Institute standard planning protocols, maintain project control guidelines, run regular maturity audits, and lead continuous workflow improvements.
- Drive the use of integrated digital project management platforms, ensuring reliable data flow across scheduling, document controls, and live visual dashboards.
Leadership & People Management
- Direct and coach a lean, capable project controls unit, ensuring clear individual accountabilities and minimal functional overlap.
- Promote a transparent, results-oriented culture where bad news travels fast, assumptions are constructively debated, and the team speaks with a unified project voice.
- Work as a collaborative peer within the leadership team, establishing close partnerships with engineering, site construction, quality, commercial, and financial directors.
- Transfer skills and build long-term capability within the team and Owner teams through active mentorship and hands-on guidance.
- Maintain an uncompromising commitment to nuclear safety and regulatory compliance; ensure schedule pressures never compromise quality standards.
Requirements
Required Background & Experience
- Total Experience: At least 15 years of progressive project controls management, including senior leadership oversight on mega-scale capital infrastructure projects.
- Nuclear Delivery: Proven, demonstrable track record delivering project controls leadership on nuclear power new-build programmes.
- Technology Background: Direct delivery experience on Gen III+ nuclear projects, specifically AP1000 and/or APR1400 technologies.
- Full-Lifecycle Scope: Demonstrated experience unifying WBS structures, multi-tier schedules, cost systems, risk tools, and executive reporting across design, construction, and testing phases.
- Multi-Contractor Governance: Demonstrated capability leading controls across large international consortia, major EPC contractors, and global component vendors.
- Issue Resolution: Proven history of identifying path delays early, proposing viable schedule recovery options, and driving corrective action to completion.
Skills & Capabilities
Technical Capabilities
- Advanced Integrated Master Scheduling (IMS) and Critical Path Method (CPM)
- Earned Value Management (EVM) standard frameworks (performance measurement baseline, variance indices, EAC modeling)
- Quantitative Schedule & Cost Risk Analysis (QSRA / QCRA)
- Resource leveling, constraint management, and forensic delay analysis
- Complete cost forecasting, cash-flow modeling, and contingency governance
Software & Systems
- Primavera P6 (advanced proficiency required)
- Primavera Risk Analysis / Oracle Primavera Cloud
- Microsoft Project & Advanced Microsoft Excel
- Power BI and modern automated reporting/dashboard platforms
Leadership & Strategic Competencies
- Clear communication with senior project executives and public stakeholders
- Constructive negotiation and contract administration capability
- High-pressure decision-making and pragmatic problem resolution
- Cross-discipline team coordination and performance management
Benefits
- Competitive salary and executive-level benefits package.
- Opportunity to lead a strategic energy infrastructure project of national and international significance.
- Collaborative, multicultural working environment.
