Cost Manager

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Job Description

Location: Podium- Euston, London

Salary Base salary: c£50,119 pa to £58,963pa depending on skills and experience. In addition, we offer flexible benefits fund of 20% which is paid on top base salary and is fully pensionable, as well as a range of competitive benefits - check them out in the Benefits section on our website.

HS2 Ltd endeavours to ensure everyone working for us and with us feels included, thrives, and achieves their full potential. In practice, this means we are positive and inclusive about making adjustments, providing flexible working, encouraging our staff networks to flourish, and providing personal and professional development opportunities.

As a Cost Manager at HS2 you will provide specific cost management support across the Rail Development Directorate (RDD).

This will include the preparation of internal budgets and the monitoring of financial cost performance of the RDD Consultants. The role will be instrumental in managing any cost risk exposure identified and will be responsible for all cost management activities in PRISM.

About the role:

• To be accountable for managing all cost activities to the Rail Development Directorate project in PRISM as per the monthly Systems Integration Calendar.
• To be accountable for supporting on the analysis and verification of contract level cost performance and ensure the data accurately reflects the current programme performance for onwards reporting.
• To be responsible for supporting on the validation of cost performance data submitted by delivery teams to the programme team as part of communicating overall programme performance.
• To be responsible for assisting with the development of contract level performance reports to communicate current performance to the programme team, including - Earned Value Management (EVM), forecasted costs and Estimate at Completion (EAC) pressures.
• To be accountable for supporting the Senior Cost Manager to ensure adherence with cost performance processes and procedures across the respective programme and also, for storing and maintaining data and documents accurately within the corporate systems.
• To be accountable for providing technical support to the Project Managers on cost performance and assist in the management of contractor teams to support the successful delivery of the Rail Development project.
• To be responsible for ensuring that the cost performance team are aligned to the current business processes and ways of working from a delivery perspective.
• To be accountable for working closely with the supply chain to develop a series of defined work-streams to progressively enhance cost performance capabilities within the Phase.
• To be responsible for ensuring that the contract teams are working to the current governance processes and review policies in order to ensure they are in line with strategic business objectives.
• To be responsible for assisting with the RDD budget (circa £50m) re-forecasting exercise, providing robust comparative analysis and impacts on the original budget, to ensure it remains in-line with the associated HS2 financial KPIs.
• To be responsible for assisting with the preparation and submission of the RDD monthly reports for all programme costs to enable prompt decision-making, approvals, and financial authorisations.
• To be accountable for representing the Rail Development Directorate at monthly supplier programme PMU 2/Dashboard review meetings, monitoring supplier performance providing the required level of challenge on actual and forecast costs.
• To be accountable for supporting on the provision of detailed and summary analysis on cost matters, including, but not limited to root cause of variance against budgets and baselines; viability and variance of cost forecasts and corrective action recommendations.
• To be accountable for the creation of Purchase Orders, timely receipt all supplier invoices and monitor values in Enterprise Resource Planning system.
• Attendance at the fortnightly PRISM users meeting.

Actively promote and embed Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in all your work and support and comply with all organisational initiatives, policies, and procedures on EDI.

About You:

Skills:

• Ability to work in a project role.
• Ability to carry out project controls reporting and analysis.
• Stakeholder management - ability to manage stakeholders within a matrix environment, including the facilitation of stakeholder meetings and information flow.
• Organisational skills, able to ensure progress is maintained within project timelines and milestones are achieved.
• Ability to analyse data and present as meaningful metrics.
• Ability to deliver against agreed deadlines.
• Able to solve problems with attention to detail.
• Data analysis - able to analyse and interpret data and produce accurate, timely and informative reports in multiple formats adapted to the needs of the audience.
• Experience of establishing effective working relationships up to senior level.
• Ability to produce information with the ability to influence and communicate across all levels within an organisation and gain commitment against required project actions.
• Communication skills - clear communicator with the ability to deliver clear presentations which engage and influence colleagues and external stakeholders.
• Ability to use Microsoft Excel as an analytics tool; fluency in other Microsoft Office suite products along with familiarity of document management and cost management systems (for example, PRISM).
• Ability to draw on industry best practice in the development and maintenance of HS2 cost systems to ensure consistent best in class approaches and decision making across all directorates.

Knowledge:

• Awareness of all aspects of cost management within a project lifecycle.
• An understanding of cost control principles and demonstrable experience of delivering project controls on a large-scale programme/project.
• Understanding of cost management tools and systems, including work breakdown, cost breakdown, and delivery structures and their impact and/or integration with change management.
• Knowledge of Project Controls, Commercial and Finance processes and how these operate.
• Knowledge and commercial awareness of multiple construction contract types (including, NEC contracts, amendments, early warning notices and the workflows of communications between contractor and client) and their respective benefits to client organisations.
• Knowledge of the core Project Controls disciplines, including Schedule Management, Change Management and Risk Management.
• Awareness of the HS2 Ltd Programme.

Types of Experience

• Experience in cost management or project control role within a major project.
• Experience of designing and maintaining Project Control related reports, for example PMU 2 / Dashboards and contributing to wider corporate reporting.
• Experience of reviewing and recording detailed information by agreed standards.
• Experience in the core project controls functions, including baseline maintenance, schedule management, cost performance, change management, risk management, performance reporting and document control.
• Experience in managing and producing performance reports that summarise cost performance, including Budgets, Earned Value Management (EVM) and forecasts on major projects.
• Experienced in the management and use of core cost and change management systems (e.g. Prism, CEMAR).
• Experience managing administrative and strategic tasks whilst contributing to wider delivery.
• Experience of working on high profile, public sector, or transport initiatives.

The post-holder is expected to behave at all times in a manner consistent with the HS2 values of Safety, Leadership, Integrity, and Respect

It is expected that you will actively promote and embed Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in all your work and support and comply with all organisational initiatives, policies, and procedures on EDI.

As HS2 Ltd do not hold a sponsorship license from the Home Office, we are not able to provide sponsorship to any applicant. Applicants must already have the Right to Work in the UK at the time of application and our process involves a Right to Work validation prior to the interview stage. Note, there are certain types of time-bound visas that we cannot accept.

Any offers made to applicants will be subject to satisfactory completion of pre-employment checks which include Nationality & Immigration Status, employment references, DBS, Financial and Education checks.

We ask for a variety of detail in your online application; however, we perform the first assessment of suitability for a role based solely on the information in your CV. In a further development of our efforts to create a more diverse workforce, your CV will be anonymised, and personal information will be removed during the first stage of the application review. This removes bias from the process and makes it even more important that you attach an updated word version of your CV for each new application ensuring you include evidence directly related to the criteria in the job advert.

Any applications received after the closing date will not be considered.

About Us

High Speed 2 (HS2 Ltd) will be the UK's new high speed rail network. As well as improving capacity, the new scheme will shorten journey times between a number of Britain's major population centres, boost the economy and create thousands of jobs.

HS2 Ltd will create a skills legacy and develop a diverse range of talent. We aim to be a leader in EDI practice by creating a safe & inclusive working environment for all our staff - living our values of Safety, Respect, Integrity and Leadership.

In practice, this means we are positive and inclusive about making adjustments, providing flexible working, encouraging our staff networks to flourish and providing personal and professional development opportunities.

HS2 Ltd is also a safety-critical organisation. Employees are required to ensure reasonable care of their own and others' health and safety by taking personal responsibility for working to our 'Safe at Heart' programme principles and following safe working procedures at all times.

HS2 Ltd endeavours to ensure everyone working for us and with us feels included, thrives and achieves their full potential.