Project Controls Lead
The Company
Buchan Offshore Wind is the developer of a major floating offshore wind farm 75 km to the northeast of Fraserburgh on the Aberdeenshire coast. With an anticipated capacity of close to 1GW and a connection date of 2033, the project would feature up to 70 turbines and has the potential to generate the equivalent of the annual power needs of some 1.4 million British homes.
A dynamic, committed and focused project team has seen the project deliver on its key milestones to date, with offshore surveys completed and offshore and onshore scoping reports both submitted. Importantly, the survey programme to date has reinforced our belief that there are no major barriers to securing a consent for the site, and the team is now working towards submitting the full planning application in the first half of 2025 and delivering on the project’s engineering roadmap.
The project’s selection of BW Ideol’s patented Damping Pool® floating substructure has the potential to both accelerate delivery and generate significant levels of employment in Scotland, with BW Ideol actively working to establish a manufacturing centre at the former oil and gas fabrication yard at Port of Ardersier.
The joint venture has three equal partners, with highly relevant and complementary capability and expertise: BayWa r.e., a global renewable energy business with UK offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh; BW Ideol, a proven floating technology leader and international floating wind project co-developer; and Elicio, an experienced Belgian offshore wind developer, owner and operator.
The Role
The Projects Control Lead is a critical role driving the development and delivery of the Buchan Offshore Wind project, reporting directly to the Commercial Director. The objective of the role is to support the project in:
delivering the development phase on schedule and budget,
appropriately managing risk across all phases of development, and
driving efficient and effective integration across project teams.
The successful candidate will be responsible for the enhancing and delivering the project controls strategy for the Buchan Offshore Wind project. This major multi-billion-pound infrastructure project will include up to 70 WTGs and associated floating foundations, up to 3 offshore substation platforms, 1 intermediate reactive compensation platform, a cable route of circa 90km offshore, 30 km of onshore cable and a HVAC substation connecting to SSE’s onshore transmission system.
More information on the scope of the project can be found in the onshore scoping report and offshore scoping report.
The project is currently finalising design to support the consenting process and is progressing to concept design phase stage and is beginning to accelerate the engineering design activities. The Project Controls Lead will enhance and implement the project controls strategy, working with an integrated engineering, planning and project team to ensure the controls function enables this critical infrastructure project to deliver on time and budget with good risk management.
Key Responsibilities
Buchan Offshore Wind has an agile and experienced development team which will grow as the project progresses through development and construction. The Project Controls Lead is a critical role that will join to lead the formative stages of the project development with an intent to lead and deliver project controls aspects of the project through to Financial Investment Decision (FID) and beyond.
In this role, the candidate will lead a number of critical aspects of the project, including:
Working alongside an integrated commercial, consenting, technical and project management team they will enhance the project controls strategy for the project identifying the priorities and processes to control budget, schedule and risk through the project development, building on existing controls and processes to ensure the controls function is meeting the needs of the project as it matures.
Responsibility for supporting the wider team in maintaining a development schedule aligned to the project development strategy, ensuring the schedule is appropriately detailed and the critical path is understood,
Ongoing responsibility for review and reporting of delivery against the schedule, ensuring that critical path and key and critical activities are monitored, that programme risks are flagged and that the project team are held accountable for delivery against the schedule.
Oversight and delivery of the project risk management functions, ensuring that the project has appropriate processes to identify, assess and mitigate project risks, and that ongoing risk management priorities are integrated into the project workstreams including technical and engineering, consenting, land, and commercial/finance.
Working alongside the finance team, supporting the project in budgeting and monitoring of costs through enhancing cost reporting processes, to ensure that there is a strong link between schedule, progress against deliverables/ value of work done and spend.
Further developing the project reporting, identifying key metrics which are material to the project success, to understand the management of risk, cost and schedule focused on the needs of the shareholders, project leadership, project teams and external bodies such as the Crown Estate Scotland, as key stakeholders. Identifying opportunities for more efficient and intuitive reporting to ensure that lagging and leading indicators support the project team in identifying delivery priorities in addition to tracking project contractual commitments.
Ensuring change management processes and wider project controls are integrated into the overall project delivery, working alongside the engineering, consenting and commercial teams and with the CDM Lead to ensure that key project decisions are formalised and changes are managed, and that process mapping, RACI matrices, document controls and any wider project processes are meeting the needs of the project,
Supporting the Commercial and Project Director in identifying the ongoing resourcing requirements and organisational delivery strategy for the project controls functions to ensure efficient and integrated delivery.
Collaborating with the wider project team in delivering the project controls processes, including the finance team, supporting cost control and risk, and the wider engineering, consenting and commercial/financial and legal workstreams.
Line management of project staff and external controls of providing controls support to the project which could include QA/document control, scheduling, and GIS. Supporting the development and managing performance and delivery of team members supporting the controls functions.
Supporting the project leadership group, working alongside the Project Director, Commercial Director, Head of Consenting and wider project leadership to ensure that collaboration and integration is a core part of the team culture. They will be responsible for driving forward project controls initiatives that enable the project to deliver against its core objectives, .
Supporting the project governance processes, including supporting reporting to and engagement with the shareholders as part of the project delivery.
Maintaining the Project Execution Plan, ensuring that the project management and controls process are regularly developed, reviewed and formalised within the project delivery plan.
Identifying opportunities to implement project controls processes and structure that enable the project to deliver successfully against its objectives.
Candidate Requirements
The role is anticipated to be fulfilled by an experienced Project Controls professional who has demonstrable experience in the development of major energy or other infrastructure projects.
While experience of offshore wind projects is desirable, it is considered that experience on offshore or onshore energy projects such as oil & gas or energy transmission would provide relevant and transferable skills.
Essential skills for the role include:
Degree in Project Management, Engineering or other relevant STEM discipline.
Chartered Project Management Professional in relevant institution such as the Association for Project Management (APM) (or ability to provide strong evidence that the candidate has relevant experience and would work towards achieving Chartered status in the short term).
Approx. 6 years + project controls experience of development infrastructure projects with a focus on early development stages up to FID.
Agile and adaptable, with experience in working in major project environments in collaborative organisations and in joint venture partnerships,
Strong communicator, able to work effectively with a range of people across engineering and non-engineering disciplines and an open and collaborative team member.
Advanced skills in MS Excel, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, PowerBI and Primavera/ MS Project or equivalent.
Strong analytical skills.
Desirable skills include:
Knowledge and experience of the UK and global offshore wind sectors
Strong people management skills with a proven track record in creating and maintaining high functioning teams.
Experience in fixed/ floating offshore and/or offshore transmission development.
Experience in construction phase of offshore wind and/or other major infrastructure projects.
Location and Working Arrangements
The post will be:
Full time
Based in Glasgow
Hybrid working arrangements available
Benefits Package
In addition to a competitive salary our wider package of rewards include:
Private Health Insurance
Life Assurance Cover
Company Pension Scheme
Flexible Working Environment
Yearly Discretionary Performance Bonus Scheme
Excellent Company Culture
Health & Wellbeing support
Access to an online benefits portal which includes
travel and shopping discounts, healthy living advice & a well-being resource bank
an Employee Assistance Programme which provides all employees with 24/7 access to telephone counselling
We look forward to your application which should be submitted to info@buchanoffshorewind.com
At Buchan Offshore Wind Limited we are fully committed to fostering equity and inclusion and embrace the diversity, of all our people. We welcome applications from everyone, irrespective of gender, gender identity, national origin, religion, social, cultural, or ethnic-background, sex, sexual orientation, age, non-disqualifying physical or mental disability, pregnancy, veteran status, or any other status protected by appropriate law. All hiring decisions are based on business needs, job requirements and qualifications. We are dedicated to being an equal opportunity employer for all by providing an inclusive environment free of discrimination or harassment.
If you as an applicant require additional assistance or accommodation throughout the recruitment process, please reach out to us.