Location: Oxford | Contract Type: Permanent | Working Pattern: Full-Time | Office Based | Regular Travel
Pay / Benefits: Remuneration for this role is benchmarked competitively within our sector.
The Opportunity
The UK's electricity network is undergoing significant investment and expansion, and effective planning is critical to delivering infrastructure projects successfully. As a Planning Manager at OCU, you'll play a central role in supporting the delivery of major power infrastructure programmes, ensuring planning approvals, conditions, and compliance requirements are managed efficiently throughout the project lifecycle.
This is an opportunity to work on nationally significant projects while collaborating with clients, designers, delivery teams, and regulatory stakeholders. If you enjoy solving complex challenges, influencing project outcomes, and helping critical infrastructure move from concept to delivery, this could be the role for you.
- Lead planning activities across multiple infrastructure projects from pre-construction through to project completion.
- Prepare, submit, and manage planning applications, approvals, amendments, and variations.
- Monitor planning conditions and compliance requirements, ensuring obligations are met throughout delivery.
- Provide planning advice and guidance to project teams to support programme certainty and efficient delivery.
- Liaise with Local Planning Authorities, statutory consultees, landowners, and other external stakeholders.
- Coordinate with engineering, environmental, and delivery teams to develop high-quality planning submissions.
- Identify planning-related risks and implement mitigation measures to minimise programme impacts.
- Maintain accurate planning records, trackers, reports, and compliance documentation.
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Degree qualified in Town Planning or a related discipline.
- RTPI chartership, or actively working towards chartered status.
- Experience within planning, infrastructure development, construction, or consultancy environments.
- Strong understanding of the UK planning system and construction-phase compliance requirements.
- Experience supporting multiple projects or complex infrastructure schemes simultaneously.
- Excellent stakeholder engagement, communication, and relationship management skills.
- Strong organisational skills with excellent attention to detail.
- Full UK driving licence.
- Experience delivering planning activities for electricity, utilities, energy, or infrastructure projects.
- Bonus if you have experience working on substations, overhead lines, underground cable, or power network projects.
- It would be great if you've worked within a Tier 1 contractor or major infrastructure delivery environment.
- It would be great if you have experience managing planning conditions, CEMPs, or construction-phase approvals.
- Understanding of how planning interfaces with engineering, programme management, and commercial delivery would be advantageous.
At OCU, we believe that meaningful work should come with meaningful support. That's the principle behind Careers with Purpose, our commitment to ensuring every person at OCU feels supported, developed, and valued, not just in their role today, but throughout their career with us.
Alongside the opportunity to work on some of the UK's most significant infrastructure projects, we offer a benefits package that we are continuing to develop as we grow, and the kind of career acceleration that only comes from being inside a business moving at this pace.
As a rapidly growing organisation, there are genuine opportunities to progress, broaden your experience, and build a long-term career within OCU Group.
For a confidential conversation about this opportunity, please contact
Jonathan Bryden at
[email protected].
Our vacancies are typically advertised for two weeks; however, we reserve the right to close applications early should we receive a sufficient number of suitable candidates. We therefore encourage early applications.
At OCU Group, we don’t just deliver infrastructure - we help power modern life.
As one of the UK’s fastest-growing utility and infrastructure businesses, we deliver complex, nationally critical projects across power, energy transition, water, telecoms, and digital infrastructure. Over the last five years, OCU has grown five-fold to a £1.1bn organisation, expanding both organically and through strategic acquisitions across the UK, Australia, New Zealand and India.
Our growth is driven by ambitious people, operational excellence, and a commitment to doing things properly. We work on projects that genuinely matter by supporting the UK’s energy transition, strengthening essential infrastructure, and helping build more sustainable communities for the future.
Whether you’re an experienced professional looking to take ownership of major projects and influence delivery at scale, or someone starting your career through an apprenticeship, graduate programme, or placement route, OCU offers real opportunity to grow, develop, and make an impact.
We are building a business where high performance, collaboration, innovation, and accountability sit at the centre of our culture. Our people are trusted to lead, encouraged to challenge thinking, and supported to continuously develop their skills and careers.
At OCU, you won’t just join a growing business, you’ll help shape it.
Our Culture & Values
At OCU, our values are at the heart of everything we do. We care about safety, lead with integrity, strive to be better every day, make a positive impact, and deliver to grow, together, as One Company United.
Our Commitment to Inclusion
At OCU Group, we believe diversity, inclusion, and belonging are fundamental to building stronger teams, better ideas, and a more successful business. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to creating an environment where everyone feels valued and supported.
As part of our commitment to fairness and equality, candidates may be asked to complete an equal opportunities monitoring form during the recruitment process. This information is used for monitoring purposes only and plays no part in hiring decisions.
We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and are committed to offering interviews to candidates with disabilities or long-term health conditions who meet the essential criteria for the role.
To ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to join our team, please inform us if you require any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment and interview process is, by emailing
[email protected].
