Senior Project Manager, DCO

The Opportunity

We’re looking for a Senior Legal Project Manager (DCO) to join our Legal Project Management (LPM) team, working closely with our market‑leading Infrastructure Planning practice on complex Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs).

This role focuses on the end‑to‑end project management of the Development Consent Order (DCO) lifecycle, from pre‑application through examination and, where required, post‑examination activity. You’ll play a critical role in guiding clients and internal teams through the Planning Act 2008 regime, ensuring delivery is structured, compliant and well‑governed throughout.

As part of Pinsent Masons Vario, our LPM team partners with legal teams and clients to deliver strategically important, high‑value projects to target margins, while improving efficiency, quality and client experience. The team also supports Vario’s wider mission to deliver commercially and legally sustainable solutions that promote flexible and inclusive ways of working.

• Support the strategic planning and day‑to‑day coordination of DCO/NSIP matters, ensuring that timelines, examination deadlines, key activities and dependencies are accurately maintained and communicated
• Facilitate the delivery of all work streams by organising inputs, monitoring progress, and ensuring legal teams and work streams remain aligned to the agreed programme
• Maintain robust control, including project plans, action logs, risk and issue registers, and specifically designed DCO-reporting tools
• Track changes in project timelines, resource needs, risks and deliverables, escalating impacts to client

• Arrange and manage governance forums including Kick‑Off Meetings, Project Team Meetings and various Workshops as needed
• Prepare agendas and ensure actions are captured, assigned and followed through
• Provide clear, consistent communication across project teams, clients, Counsel, and external consultants —ensuring all parties understand what is required and by when

• Apply advanced stakeholder management skills to coordinate complex interactions across legal teams, planning specialists, environmental consultants, and client organisations
• Guide project teams through the procedural demands of the Planning Act 2008 and the DCO examination process, ensuring deadlines and statutory requirements remain front‑of‑mind
• Promote collaboration between all work streams and support issue resolution through proactive engagement and cross‑team communication

• Identify programme‑level risks and issues, ensuring they are captured, assessed, monitored and escalated appropriately
• Contribute to post‑project reviews and lessons learned exercises, feeding improvements back into the DCO PMO and wider LPM processes

• Support the development and enhancement of project templates, trackers, tools and standard operating procedures for DCO matters
• Promote lean working practices and process efficiencies to improve the consistency and quality of DCO project delivery
• Identify improvement opportunities and support ongoing innovation within the Infrastructure Planning team

• Collaborate with pricing and legal teams by providing delivery insights needed to support client proposals and matter initiation
• Support large bids, and tenders where DCO project management expertise is required
• Mentor more junior project managers
• Provide general project management support across other teams/matters where required, while maintaining a primary focus on the DCO portfolio

• Demonstrable experience delivering key stages of Development Consent Orders
• Experience coordinating complex, multi‑workstream and multi‑organisation projects]
• A strong understanding of the Planning Act 2008, the NSIP regime and DCO process
• A project management qualification (desirable)
• Excellent planning, coordination, communication and stakeholder management skills
• Strong attention to detail and the ability to manage…