Senior Project Manager – Backfill
Location: Suffolk/London/Hybrid
Join the exciting journey of one of the UK's largest nuclear projects at Sizewell C!
The Civil Works Alliance (CWA) is seeking a highly skilled and experienced Senior Project Manager specialising in Backfill to support the successful delivery of the Sizewell C Project.
CWA, appointed by the Sizewell C client, brings together three leading delivery contractors — Laing O'Rourke, Bouygues, and Balfour Beatty — to deliver the civils scope including Enabling Earthworks, Main Civil Works, and Marine and Tunnelling.
We are looking for a Senior Project Manager to lead the planning and delivery of backfill activities within the Main Civil Works (MCW) scope at Sizewell C. This role covers both pre-construction and delivery phases — ensuring that design, planning, coordination and execution of backfill operations are completed safely, efficiently, and in full compliance with technical and quality standards. The successful candidate will drive delivery readiness, manage interfaces, and support the execution strategy for this critical stage of the project.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the pre-construction and delivery of backfill works, overseeing design, planning, technical preparation and coordination.
- Collaborate with design, engineering and client teams to ensure designs meet safety, buildability, and operational requirements.
- Contribute to development of 3D/4D models, verifying constructability, material suitability and construction sequencing.
- Participate in trials to validate technical assumptions and performance rates.
- Oversee temporary works design for ramps, accesses, and other backfill-related structures.
- Support cost estimation, budgeting and the Target Outturn Cost (TOC) process with estimators and commercial teams.
- Define delivery strategy and prepare the Project Execution Plan.
- Manage subcontractor engagement, tendering, negotiation and contract completion in collaboration with procurement and commercial teams.
- Lead the delivery phase to ensure works are completed safely, on time, to quality and within budget.
- Monitor programme progress, resources, and performance against key milestones; provide accurate reporting to senior stakeholders.
- Manage quality assurance, inspection processes and non-conformance resolution with the CWA quality function.
- Identify and mitigate project risks, ensuring compliance with schedule and cost objectives.
- Coordinate interfaces between backfill, earthworks, temporary works and adjacent construction areas.
- Capture lessons learned and embedded continuous improvement practices across the delivery team.
What skills & experience are we looking for?
Essential:
- Demonstrable experience managing large-scale civil engineering projects, including excavation and backfill operations.
- Proven capability in leading multidisciplinary project teams across design, planning, procurement and delivery.
- Strong understanding of technical, quality and safety requirements for major construction projects.
- Experience working in complex joint ventures or alliances.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills
Desirable:
- Experience in nuclear or other highly regulated environments.
- Familiarity with NEC4 SC and ECC contracts.
- UK major project experience and associated training.
Qualifications
- Member of APM, PMI or equivalent professional body.
- CSCS Black Managers or PQP Card.
- SMSTS or IOSH Managing Safely (desirable).
Why SZC?
This is your chance to contribute to one of the UK's most ambitious infrastructure projects, shaping the future of energy while working in a supportive, dynamic environment. Be part of a team that values innovation, safety, and sustainability at every stage of the journey—from investment to construction and beyond.
About Laing O'Rourke
We are an international engineering and construction company delivering state-of-the-art infrastructure and buildings projects for clients in the UK, Middle East and Australia.
Certainty, reliability, quality – this is what our clients want. And at Laing O'Rourke, we have more than 150 years of experience delivering it. Laing O'Rourke's story is one of energy, passion, ambition, people and teamwork. We harness the power of our experience, stretching back over a century and a half to deliver certainty for our clients.
As part of the Disability Confident scheme, we would like to enable access to candidates with long term health conditions and disabilities through the ‘Offer an interview scheme'. This supports applicants that meet the essential criteria by offering an interview for the advertised position. Please let us know prior to interview what adjustments are required as well as discussing how we can support you in the workplace.
We want to ensure our recruitment process is accessible to all. If you need the application form in an alternative format or you would like to know more about our recruitment process, please email [email protected]
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