Senior Technical Rail Officer

Morson are recruiting for a Senior Technical Rail Officer.

The client hosts a team of railway professionals who work on behalf of the client to manage the rail franchises, ensuring the franchisees deliver for the passenger in line with their contractual commitments, holding them to account where they do not and planning for the continued growth and improvement of rail passenger services as a cornerstone of a thriving North of England.

We are looking to appoint a Senior Technical Rail Officer to:

Act as the clients primary specialist in a role providing critical rail service technical support to the Rail Management Team, Board and Partners in relation to analysing, selecting, contracting and implementing the passenger-service solution for the Upgrade works and interim and final outputs.

You will be expected to provide impactful strategic and policy input by building strong relationships, internally and externally and be able to influence, shape, challenge and contribute to the development and delivery of the project.

What we're looking for:

The successful candidate will be a subject matter expert in rail operations and will possess significant experience and detailed knowledge of rolling stock, train planning and timetabling matters relating to service provisions including train length, frequency, capacity and passenger needs and expectations.
In addition, it is imperative you also have a strong understanding of train crew training and resourcing in order to support business case development for short disruption planning, intermediate and end states of similar programmes.

With good commercial understanding, you will realise the impacts on possession plans and revenue for changes to train plans and will be able to identify, report on and manage risks or issues arising from a train service prospective.

As a confident communicator at senior level you will have the ability to influence a wide range of stakeholders, partners and senior colleagues and the confidence to represent the client in a range of forums at regional level.

Candidates must possess a relevant degree or other post graduate qualification, or the relevant experience gained through experience, in addition to a professional qualification.

Key Skills

Lead, motivate and engage team members, monitoring performance, to ensure a high-performing and cohesive team which works in a collaborative manner consistent with client's values.
Translate business objectives into clearly defined business cases, costs or schedules that meet required internal standards and those set by the client to support achievement of a strategy/policy area.
Identify and make recommendations to strategy and policy development, focusing on ways implementation can be achieved more effectively and efficiently to achieve Partner's wider strategic transport plans.
Develop and maintain strong relationships with critical stakeholders, both internally and externally, in order to ensure and influence the successful delivery of the programme.
Manage strategic projects and initiatives that cut-cross Partner's programmes in order to improve strategic planning and create value for partners utilising a project management framework in order to identify, assess and take action to mitigate risks to project success.
Analyse external factors and market trends in order to identify potential opportunities or risks, always focused on the growth agenda.
Analyse key themes from a wide range of sources in order to identify how different scenarios may impact upon the programme.
Establish and manage the framework of research and intelligence that is required to build a robust evidence base to shape key decisions for a strategy/policy.
Review and report emerging best practice and guidance, sharing with wider stakeholders to ensure the evidence base and outputs are the best they can be.
Produce timely and informed advice and briefings to Board Members and Senior Management.
Contribute to the development of and lead the control of relevant budgets to ensure value for money and cost, fulfilling financial and contractual management requirements and ensuring the effective use of financial resources within budget.
Supervise and quality-assure the drafting of key strategy/policy documents to ensure consistency including wider Strategic Transport Plan.
Develop close working relationship with senior industry colleagues in the train operators, Network Rail etc., to allow a sound analysis of proposals put forward to address disruption/possession during works.
Analyse and input to options and proposals from a technical i.e. deliverability/reliability and commercial or financial i.e. value for money/affordability perspective including - rolling stock procurement, fitment and operation; timetabling; fleet and personnel diagramming; and recruitment and training.
Pro-actively support the programme governance and development inside the programme and RNP to have options agreed and approved in time for implementation.
Provide policy and strategy input required to meet the needs of the client and its partners, continually reflecting changing requirements and external context.
Manage, develop and build effective working relationships towards Partner's objectives and vision - focusing on its consultation process.
Co-ordinate input to government and industry consultations, and other enquiries as appropriate.
Regular monitoring and reporting inside the governance structures in place for non-technical audience of stakeholders