Exciting opportunity alert! Join us as a Cost Planner for Thames Water's Water Resources Management Plan. You'll be crucial in delivering a £50m investment programme in AMP8 by coordinating, monitoring, and reporting program and project costs. Don't miss this chance to drive impactful projects and contribute to our success!
What you'll be doing as a Cost Planner
- Provide cost planning support to the programme manager across a portfolio of complex projects. Identify and understand variances across projects and support the project/programme manager to resolve these.
- Work alongside the programme manager to monitor and forecast Unbriefed allocations and drawdowns to eliminate the risk of double counting.
- Complete monthly reporting with high-quality analytics to enable quality and timely decision-making and onward reporting.
- Responsible for input of financial and project governance elements of Investment Committee papers and Business Cases. Responsible for ensuring SAP alignment with papers submitted and completion of the relevant processes to facilitate the timely release of funds once the budget has been approved.
- Raise purchase orders on SAP and goods receipt invoices, ensuring transparent and auditable reporting has been provided to justify the associated spending.
- Work with programme leads to establish a project structure and WBS for the new AMP, which will help track budgets and the programme.
- Provide leadership and guidance to project teams regarding best practices for cost management (Capex and Opex), financial governance, etc.
- Maintain SAP with information about budgets, forecasts, actuals, and slippage, as provided by the team, tracking key business milestones. Assure the quality of the data and compliance with financial and corporate policies on cost recognition.
- Led monthly project/programme meetings to capture accurate VOWD updates from Internal and external Clients and ongoing management of associated accruals.
- Support Budget setting and financial re-forecasting for their functional business area.
Hybrid – Clearwater Court, Reading – you will be required in the office 2-3 days a week.
36 hours a week, Monday to Friday – we are also open to part-time and condensed hours for this role.
What you should bring to the role
- Cost Planner/ Financial Controller or Senior analyst with proven experience, ideally with regulatory reporting experience gained in a commercial or project controls environment.
- Knowledge of SAP transactions (or similar finance platform) and adept in capturing/analysing costs, forecasting, project information & governance, and supply chain.
- Can demonstrate best practice and compliance in managing Totex projects with multiple WBSs and workstreams.
- Strong numerical and analytical skills. Able to use Office 365 reporting products. Experience with Power BI would be desirable but not necessary.
- A good working knowledge of Planning Software (preferably P6, Microsoft Project).
- Strong communication skills, constructively engaging and collaborating with multiple partners and teams.
- Experience in governance and assurance compliance, including change management processes.
- Regulatory reporting experience gained in a commercial or project controls environment.
What's in it for you?
- Competitive salary from £48,000 to £52,000 per annum.
- 26 days holiday per year increasing to 30 with the length of service. (Plus bank holidays)
- Contributory pension – Defined Contribution - Maximum of 12% -2x employee contribution.
- Personal Medical Assessments – Open to all once a year.
- Wider benefits scheme including our benefits hub, which is packed full of offers and information to save you money and support your wellbeing.
Who are we?
At Thames Water, our purpose is crystal clear - to deliver life's essential service so our customers, communities and planet can thrive.
Water is life's great leveller. Every living thing needs it, every single day. From people to plants, birds to bees, farms to factories, we all need it to thrive, and we're committed to taking care of it for us all.
But keeping water flowing is becoming harder. From scorching summers to wetter winters, extreme weather affects everything from our pipes to our local rivers. We need to keep millions more kettles boiling, public services operating, washing machines spinning, showers running and more, so every drop is more precious than ever. Are you ready to play your part?
Working at Thames Wate
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At Thames Water we recognise that people are at the heart of our business. To help us succeed in providing life's essential service, we need a range of skills and capabilities, representative of society throughout our business.
We seek to attract and retain a cultural mix of people who can offer different but complimentary attitudes, values, talents, and knowledge. We understand the importance of appreciating and harnessing the unique skills, experiences, background, and differences that each individual brings.
Our over-arching diversity and inclusion aim is to ensure Thames Water is a diverse and inclusive great place to work. We encourage applications from everyone and offer extra support for those who need it throughout the recruitment process.
Find out more about working at Thames Water.
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, meet colleagues and earn some extra money along the way.
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.