Planning Manager

Where passion meets opportunity

The best of your adventures is the one you have yet to sail!

Your Purpose

We are excited to be hiring for a Planning Manager to join our dynamic and growing New Building and Technical Engineering & Guarantee department in London. This is a key role providing coordinated planning, scheduling, and reporting support across the full shipbuilding lifecycle — from concept and design through shipyard delivery and the guarantee period.

You will play a central role in integrating planning activities across project management, architectural design, engineering, and technical teams, while acting as the primary interface with shipyard planning systems. The Planning Manager ensures accurate scheduling, workload planning, progress tracking, and reporting to support timely execution of design approvals, production, testing, and post-delivery activities.

Your Impact

• Provides planning, coordination, and reporting support for multiple large-scale cruise ship newbuilding projects from concept through delivery and guarantee.
• Acts as the focal point for developing, maintaining, and optimizing integrated schedules covering architectural design, engineering, technical, and guarantee activities.
• Coordinate planning inputs from multiple internal stakeholders, including: 
  • Architectural Design teams
  • Plan Approval and R&D Engineers
  • Factory and Harbour Acceptance Test (FAT/HAT) participants
  • Technical Engineering and Guarantee teams
  • Cross-functional departments and external partners
• Tracks progress against key milestones, deliverables, and critical paths, providing regular status updates, forecasts, and risk assessments.
• Monitors shipyard production and delivery schedules and assess impacts on the overall newbuilding program.
• Supports the Architectural Design function by planning and tracking internal design phase milestones and deliverables.
• Supports the Technical Engineering & Guarantee teams by planning and tracking post-delivery technical issues, corrective actions, guarantees, and claims.
• Integrates planning data with project controls, dashboards, and reporting systems to define resource requirements and workload forecasts.
• Facilitates planning and coordination meetings, ensuring alignment across internal and external stakeholders.
• Provides scenario analysis, simulations, and impact assessments for changes in scope, schedule, or resources (forecast vs. actual).
• Tracks residual work and overall project progress against milestone plans, providing forward-looking insights.
• Ensures compliance with internal planning standards and contribute to continuous improvement of planning methodologies, tools, and reporting.
• Adapts planning approaches in response to changing priorities and project conditions.
• Performs duties independently with minimal guidance and take ownership of planning deliverables.
• Undertakes additional reasonable duties as required to support the department and assigned newbuilding programs.

Your Journey so far

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to engage effectively at all organizational levels.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with a structured and data-driven mindset.
• Solid understanding of engineering and shipbuilding workflows (preferred), including:
  • Design and plan approval processes
  • FATs and HATs
  • Technical documentation
  • Guarantee and after-delivery support activities
• Ability to quickly learn and navigate complex technical databases and project systems.
• Proven ability to independently develop planning approaches, identify critical path risks, analyze large data sets, and provide actionable recommendations.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate and influence within a multicultural, multi-disciplinary environment. 
• Strong organizational, administrative, presentation, and data visualization skills.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced project environment.
• Comfortable interpreting complex technical information, schedules, diagrams, and numerical data.
• Able to clearly present planning data, reports, and forecasts to senior management, peers, shipyards, vendors, and shipboard teams.

Your Essentials

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Engineering or a relevant technical discipline.
• Minimum 6–8 years of experience in a similar planning or project controls role within construction, engineering, or technical services environments.
• Experience in a shipyard or marine/offshore environment is a strong advantage.
• Proficiency in:
  • Monday.com
  • MS Project
  • MS Excel, PowerPoint, Word
  • Power BI
  • Visio
  • Primavera P6 (advantageous)
• Strong working knowledge of digital reporting, dashboards, email, and internet-based tools.
• Fluent in English; additional languages are an advantage.
• Willingness and ability to travel internationally on a regular basis.
• Existing right to live and work in the UK.

Our commitment

We are committed to building a future that values diverse perspectives, embraces the world beyond borders, and fosters an inclusive environment where every individual feels valued, respected and empowered to be their authentic selves. Our commitment extends to taking meaningful, measurable actions that have a long-term positive impact on our guests, our employees and our planet.

Ready to turn your passion into something extraordinary? Join us at MSC Cruises, where new opportunities await. Apply today to be part of a global team that is pushing boundaries and achieving something remarkable. Your journey starts here!