Lead Planner; Access); Wessex

As Lead Planner, you'll:

Join the Southern Region where your work truly matters. Covering Wessex, Sussex, and Kent, the Southern Region is one of the busiest and most dynamic parts of the railway. Our teams keep some of the UK's most vital passenger and freight routes moving every single day. This is a place where collaboration, innovation, and resilience are key and where your contribution will directly impact millions of journeys.

We are entering an exciting new chapter as we integrate with train operating companies under one national leadership, creating even greater opportunities to shape the future of rail. From supporting major modernisation programmes to improving performance for local communities and enhancing safety across complex operational environments, Southern offers a fast‑paced, rewarding environment to grow your career and make a real difference.

Applicants should be able to demonstrate their awareness of our safety vision.

Lead Planner

We're looking for a Lead Planner who can bring people, priorities and complex planning requirements together to create a safe, efficient and robust Route Engineering Access Plan. This is a key leadership role where you'll shape and integrate engineering access across the Route, helping to support delivery of the Route Strategic Business Plan. You'll work collaboratively with teams across the industry to resolve access conflicts, identify efficient solutions and ensure engineering work can be delivered safely while protecting overall Route performance.

Just as importantly, you'll lead and develop a planning team, creating an environment where people feel supported to contribute, develop their skills and continuously improve.

We want our workforce to reflect the communities we serve and welcome applications from people with different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. If your experience doesn't match every point perfectly, but you believe you can bring the skills and approach needed to succeed in the role, we'd still encourage you to apply.

• Lead the development of the Route Engineering Access Plan, safely bringing together access, isolations, protected paths and Temporary Speed Restriction (TSR) requirements in line with relevant standards.
• Bring teams together to solve complex planning challenges, coordinating Work Deliverers and balancing different priorities to create a safe, optimised and robust engineering access plan.
• Lead the late change process, making informed prioritisation decisions within your authority and escalating where appropriate to make sure changes remain safe and compliant.
• Identify opportunities to use access more effectively, considering financial efficiencies and the Schedule 4 & 8 impacts of different options and making recommendations where required.
• Build strong, collaborative relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders, encouraging open communication and constructive challenge.
• Lead, coach and mentor the planning team, providing clear direction while helping colleagues build their confidence, capability and performance.
• Maintain a competent planning team, supporting compliance through appropriate competency assessment systems.
• Champion continuous improvement, encouraging people to share ideas, knowledge and best practice across the wider industry.
• Support Route and National communications relating to engineering work, helping provide accurate and effective information.
• Lead and validate planning information for the Route, helping ensure stakeholders have reliable information to support effective decision-making.

You'll…