Project Controls Manager

About the job: 
Kent is looking for a Project Controls Manager to lead the integrated project controls function for a construction project. The role establishes and manages the controls framework across the procurement, construction, commissioning, and project closeout, ensuring performance is effectively measured, forecast, and communicated to the Owner and project leadership team.  The Project Controls Manager is a key advisor to the Project Manager and the Owner’s leadership team, providing an integrated view of cost, schedule, progress, change, risk, productivity, and forecast performance.  The role establishes the systems, processes, governance, and reporting needed to apply project controls consistently, identify emerging issues early, and enable timely management intervention.
 

Skills and Responsibilities:  
Responsibilities:
 

Project Controls Management and Governance
• Lead the Project Controls organization and provide functional leadership across cost, planning and scheduling, progress measurement, change management, risk, and reporting; mentor and develop a multidisciplinary team.
• Develop and implement the Project Controls Plan in alignment with the Project Execution Plan and Owner requirements; establish procedures, standards, reporting requirements, and governance processes.
• Develop the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS), Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS), control accounts, cost codes, and schedule coding requirements.
• Ensure consistent application of controls across project phases and contractors, promoting early identification of trends, risks, and opportunities.
 

Cost Management and Forecasting
• Establish and maintain the control budget and approved project baseline; manage commitments, actual costs, accruals, trends, approved and pending changes, contingency, and Estimate at Completion (EAC).
• Lead monthly cost forecasting, challenge project and contractor assumptions, and identify potential overruns and savings opportunities against approved budgets.
• Ensure forecasts reflect current conditions, remaining scope, productivity, schedule, commitments, and risk exposure; maintain cost trending and forecast reports.
• Coordinate with Procurement, Contracts, Construction, and Finance to validate the accuracy and completeness of cost information; review contractor cost reports, forecasts, change orders, claims, and commercial exposure.
 

Planning and Scheduling
• Lead development and maintenance of the Integrated Master Schedule (IMS), integrating contractor schedules and maintaining the appropriate Level 1 through Level 4 or 5 schedule hierarchy.
• Monitor critical and near-critical paths, float, milestones, constraints, interfaces, and forecast completion dates.
• Lead schedule development, baseline reviews, monthly updates, quality assessments, and recovery planning.
• Evaluate schedule impacts arising from changes, engineering delays, procurement issues, construction productivity, and other project events; identify trends early and develop mitigation and recovery strategies.
 

Progress Measurement and Earned Value
• Establish a project-wide Progress Measurement System (PMS) and objective measurement rules for procurement, construction, commissioning, and other major activities.
• Validate contractor progress against physical quantities, deliverables, milestones, and objective evidence; integrate progress measurement with schedule and cost systems.
• Monitor Planned Value, Earned Value, Actual Cost, Cost Performance Index (CPI), Schedule Performance Index (SPI), productivity, and forecast performance.
• Establish appropriate earned value and productivity methodologies for major construction work packages; ensure reported progress reflects actual accomplishment and exposes emerging performance issues.
 

Change Management
• Own the project change management and trend control process from a Project Controls perspective, establishing requirements to identify, document, estimate, evaluate, approve, and implement changes.
• Maintain visibility of approved, pending, and potential changes, trends, and management reserve; evaluate full cost and schedule impacts before incorporating changes into the baseline.
• Monitor cumulative change impacts, scope growth, and cost escalation; incorporate approved changes into budgets, forecasts, schedules, and reporting systems.
• Work with Commercial and Contracts teams to evaluate contractor change requests and claims.
 

Risk and Opportunity Management
• Integrate project controls with the overall risk management process; identify cost and schedule risks through performance, contractor trend, productivity, schedule, and forecast analysis.
• Support qualitative and quantitative cost and schedule risk analysis; monitor contingency and management reserve utilization.
• Reflect risks and opportunities appropriately in forecasts and clearly communicate risk-adjusted cost and schedule exposure to project leadership.
 

Construction and Work Packaging Controls
• Establish controls requirements supporting Advanced Work Packaging (AWP), work packages, and construction execution; integrate engineering deliverables, procurement status, construction work packages, and field progress.
• Monitor planned and installed quantities, labor hours, productivity, manpower, and forecasts to complete; establish metrics and benchmarks for major construction disciplines.
• Identify productivity degradation and emerging construction performance issues, ensuring field progress aligns with schedule and cost forecasts.
 

Reporting and Executive Decision Support
• Lead weekly and monthly integrated reporting covering cost and EAC, schedule and critical path, physical progress, earned value, productivity, changes, risks and opportunities, procurement, construction, and commissioning.
• Provide concise executive reporting to the Project Director, Owner, Steering Committee, and senior leadership; establish dashboards and performance indicators using tools such as Power BI.
• Highlight significant trends, variances, risks, and opportunities, and recommend corrective actions and management interventions.
 

Project Controls Systems and Data Integration
• Establish and maintain integration between Primavera P6, EcoSys, ERP, estimating, document management, work packaging, and Power BI systems.
• Align cost, schedule, progress, and forecast data; establish data governance and quality controls to maintain a reliable single source of truth for project performance.
• Lead development and implementation of dashboards and automated reporting where appropriate.
 

In addition to the responsibilities listed herein, the employee may be required to perform other ad-hoc tasks as needed or directed by the supervisor or management. These tasks will be within the reasonable scope of the employee's skills, capabilities, and role within the organization. The intent of this provision is to allow for flexibility and adaptability in meeting the dynamic needs of the organization, ensuring that operational requirements can be met efficiently. All such tasks will be assigned considering the employee's current workload and with respect to their professional development.

Your knowledge/skills, education, and experience: 
Knowledge/Qualification/Training/Certification:
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Business, Finance, or a related discipline.
• 15+ years of progressive project controls experience, preferably including leadership on major capital projects.
• Significant experience in Construction project environments.
• Demonstrated experience leading multidisciplinary project controls teams, with strong knowledge of cost management, planning and scheduling, progress measurement, earned value, change management, risk, productivity, and forecasting.
• Advanced knowledge of Primavera P6; experience with EcoSys or comparable enterprise project cost management systems; strong Excel and data analytics capabilities.
• Experience developing executive dashboards and reports using Power BI is preferred.
• Major capital project experience in LNG, oil and gas, refining, petrochemicals, chemicals, energy, mining, industrial manufacturing, or infrastructure is preferred. Experience in complex construction environments involving multiple EPC contractors, modularization, AWP, and major construction work packages is highly desirable.
 

Communication:
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to translate complex cost, schedule, and risk information into clear recommendations.
• Strong executive presentation and reporting skills, supporting effective engagement with the Owner, senior leadership, project teams, and contractors.
• Ability to challenge assumptions and forecasts constructively and coordinate corrective actions across disciplines.
 

Behavior/ Core Competencies:
• Strategic project controls leadership, strong commercial and financial acumen, and advanced cost and schedule management.
• Strong analytical and forecasting skills, contractor performance management, and understanding of EPC project execution.
• Ability to identify trends and issues before they become significant project problems and operate effectively in a complex, multi-contractor environment.
• Strong leadership, mentoring, and team-building capabilities.

HSSEQ:
The Employee shall observe the Health, Safety, Sustainability, Environment and Quality rules of the Company; it’s clients and the governing authorities of the host country.

Details about the role: 
Location: Calgary or Edmonton office, with frequent trips to the project site
Relocation required: N/A
Travel required: Yes, frequent trips to the project site
Contract type: Project duration
Experience level: 15+ years