Location: Crawley, United Kingdom
In fast changing markets, customers worldwide rely on Thales. Thales is a business where brilliant people from all over the world come together to share ideas and inspire each other. In aerospace, transportation, defence, security and space, our architects design innovative solutions that make our tomorrow's possible.
Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us. At Thales UK, we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across five major industries; Aerospace, Defence, Ground Transportation, Security and Space. Your health and well-being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you; whether that’s part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.
Head of Project Controls
Our opportunity at a glance:
As a member of the UK Delivery Assurance Team (DAT), the DAT Head of Project Controls is responsible for improving project performance by increasing the maturity of project controls, in particular planning and scheduling, risk/opportunity management including Schedule Risk Analysis (SRA), and Earned Value Management (EVM) capability across Thales in the UK. This includes hands-on leadership and guidance to actively support key bids and projects in a delivery assurance capacity.
You will have an outstanding track record covering the full project lifecycle from bid to closure and be recognised as an expert in project controls - planning, risk/opportunity, SRA and EVM. You must be capable of balancing many competing priorities from a functional and operational delivery perspective, working at a high tempo and influencing a broad network of stakeholders to make a real impact on delivery performance.
Key tasks in more detail:
The Head of Project Controls supports all project management activities, from bid initiation to project closure, and all bid and project stakeholders. You’ll make stakeholders converge on fundamental practices and tools for Bids and Project management and provide expertise and know-how in Bids and Projects for better performance throughout the bid/project life cycle through consistent practices (best practices, recommendations and coaching). Additionally, you will manage feedback for the benefit of bids and projects (associated processes, collection and sharing of feedback).
Hands-on support to Bids or Projects
Support to Project setup and/or recovery
Diagnosing performance issues, developing and implementing improvement plans
Assurance reviews (analysis, diagnosis, recommendation)
Project Controls components of Baseline Validation of Critical and B2 Bids
Short-term dedicated support (E.g. at critical phases of a Bid or Project)
Medium-term interim/transition management (in exceptional cases)
Audits, Peer Reviews (internal and/or external) focussed on compliance to process and best practice
Support risk/opportunity activities to improve bid and project maturity
Hands-on support to Portfolios and/or Business Domains:
Coaching, mentoring and training
Deployment of new capabilities
Supporting organisational change activities
Support risk/opportunity management/analysis activities to improve portfolio/domain maturity
About You:
Subject matter expertise in planning, scheduling, risk/opportunity and EVM principles, processes and practices
Adept at building robust and productive relationships in a complex environment with many stakeholders - within the function, transversally across functional and business unit boundaries
Excellent interpersonal and communication skills including written presentation and report writing
Ability to lead project interventions in a matrix-style function and organisation
The ability to assess, decipher, report and act upon salient performance information from a variety of indicators
Significant experience of establishing and managing schedules on complex projects/programmes
Experienced implementing and operating risk/opportunity and SRA on complex projects/programmes
Demonstrable experience of implementing best practice in large and complex organisations
Working in a leadership, energised/energising capacity and able to drive change with urgency and an absolute focus on outcomes and benefits
The ability to design, deliver and secure planned benefits from change initiatives
Benefits at Thales
We strive to create an environment where you can prioritise your wellbeing and have designed our benefits to give you the flexibility and power to do so. Our core benefits include a company car allowance, pension plan, private medical insurance, life assurance, income protection as well as an employee assistance programme.
In addition, our flexible benefits platform gives you the power to customise your benefits to suit your needs. You can choose to add a number of optional benefits including: healthcare cash plan, health assessments, family cover private medical insurance, buying/selling annual leave, gym membership discounts + much, much more. You can also enjoy exclusive access to our discount site!
Alongside a competitive base salary, we offer a variable compensation plan bonus, 27 days annual leave + 1 company day + UK public holidays as well as the opportunity to volunteer up to 3 days to support local charities/communities in which we work.
Thales is an equal opportunities employer and diversity and inclusion are integral to our success.
In line with Thales' Baseline Security requirements, candidates will be asked to provide evidence of identity, eligibility to work in the UK and employment and/or education history for up to three years. Some vacancies may require full Security Clearance which can require further evidence to be provided. For further details of the evidence required to apply for Baseline and Security Clearance please refer to the Defence Business Services National Security Vetting (DBS NSV) Agency.
At Thales we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working.
Thales UK is committed to providing an inclusive and barrier-free recruitment process. We will provide reasonable adjustments and support to ensure neuro-diverse applicants or those with a disability or long-term condition can be their best during the recruitment process. To request an adjustment, if you need this job advert in an alternative format or if you have any questions about the recruitment process, please contact Resourcing Ops for mid to senior roles, or the Early Careers Team for graduate and apprentice roles.
Great journeys start here, apply now!