Cost Manager

The purpose of the role is to provide specific cost management support to the Hybrid Bill Delivery Directorate to achieve Royal Assent of the Phase 2b Western leg Hybrid Bill. This will include but is not limited to the preparation of the Hybrid Bill internal budgets and the monitoring of financial cost performance of the Phase 2b Consultants. The role will be instrumental in managing any cost risk exposure identified during the Parliamentary passage of the Phase 2b Western leg Hybrid Bill and will be responsible for all cost management activities to the Hybrid Bill project in PRISM. The role will act as the cost champion for Hybrid Bill across Phase 2 Project Controls and HS2.

About the Role:

• Manage the overall Hybrid Bill budget (circa £80 - £95m) and ensure it remains inline with the associated HS2 financial KPIs
• Manage the annual hybrid Bill quarterly budget re-forecasting exercise, providing robust comparative analysis and impacts on the original budget
• Manage all cost activities to the Hybrid Bill project in PRISM as per the monthly Systems Integration Calendar
• Assist the preparation and submission of the Hybrid Bill monthly report for all programme costs to enable prompt decision-making, approvals and financial authorisations
• Represent the Hybrid Bill Directorate at monthly supplier programme Dashboard review meetings, monitoring supplier performance providing the required level of challenge on actual and forecast costs
• Provide 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
• Represent Hybrid Bill at the weekly PRISM SuperUser meeting
• Support hybrid Bill creating all Purchase Orders and providing the timely receipt all supplier invoices in Enterprise Resource Planning system.

About You:

Skills:

• Ability to work in a project role
• Ability to carry out project controls reporting and analysis
• 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
• 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
• 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
• Awareness of the HS2 Ltd Programme

Type of experience:

• Experience of designing and maintaining Project Control related reports, for example Dashboards and contributing to wider corporate reporting
• Experience of reviewing and recording detailed information by agreed standards
• Experience of working with internal cost and change management systems
• Experience with project/programme management software packages
• Experience managing administrative and strategic tasks whilst contributing to wider delivery
• Experience of working on high profile, public sector or transport initiatives.