Senior Planner

Overview

Role Overview

We are recruiting on behalf of a JSE-listed construction group with a strong positive reputation for their Renewable Energy division. The business delivers electrical BoP construction on wind farm projects—underground cabling, substations, OHL construction, and MTS work. This is a predominantly electrical environment. The division is two to three years old, flat out busy, and has a confirmed project pipeline.

This is not an administrative planning role. The division has one of those already and is deliberately moving away from it. They need a planner who builds the job in their head before they build it on the programme—someone who understands production rates, sequencing logic, and resource calculations from first principles, and who tells the construction team what needs to happen before they ask.

You are the sole planning resource for the particular project. You own the function end-to-end—tender stage through to handover—across the electrical BoP scope including cabling, substations, and OHL works. As the client base grows, so does this role.

Location: Site-based – Mpumalanga (primary). Head Office, East Rand. Travel across project sites as the portfolio expands.

Working arrangement: Site-based and office. Not home-based.

What You Will Do

• Build tender programmes in CCS/Candi and MS Projects from first principles—linking the bill of quantities, pricing, resources, and cash flows into a single integrated model
• Establish and maintain baseline construction programmes for all active projects
• Develop detailed sub-programmes where the master programme lacks the granularity to drive site execution—including MTS/substation construction sequences
• Produce and update short‑interval look‑ahead programmes that the site team actually works from
• Integrate all work packages—cabling, substation, OHL, and any civil elements—into one coherent master programme
• Calculate durations from production rates—not from templates or estimations
• Flag critical path risks and sequencing conflicts to the construction team before they become problems
• Produce recovery and acceleration plans when projects fall behind baseline
• Prepare contractual programme reports in line with FIDIC requirements
• Support delay analysis and EOT claims as a secondary function when required

What Good Looks Like

You calculate durations from production rates without being asked. Given earthworks volumes, cable lengths, or installation quantities, you work back to duration independently. Your baselines reflect reality—not aspiration. The site team works from your look‑aheads rather than around them.

You raise a sequencing risk before the PM spots it. You know that the MTS takes longer to build than the entire wind farm and you've planned for it accordingly. Your tender programmes are detailed enough that they strengthen submissions commercially, not just satisfy a box on a form.

You operate without needing to be directed. The Contracts Director is not involved in your day‑to‑day. You know what needs to happen, you make it happen, and when something is going wrong you say so directly.

If your planning career has been about updating programmes and producing progress reports, this is not the right role. If it has been about building the job before the first sod is turned and driving the team to deliver it—keep reading.

What We're Looking For

Minimum requirements

• BTech in Engineering, Construction Management, or equivalent
• Minimum 5 years' project planning experience on large‑scale construction projects
• MS Projects proficiency—non‑negotiable
• CCS/Candi proficiency, or a demonstrable track record of learning complex planning tools quickly and a genuine willingness to do so—the division uses Candi for tender programming
• Able to calculate programme durations from production rates independently
• Experience producing tender programmes, baselines, construction programmes, and contractual reports from scratch
• FIDIC contract framework experience

Preferred

• Wind farm BoP construction experience—solar experience considered but wind is the primary environment
• Full EPC lifecycle exposure—groundworks through to COD
• Prima…