Join Our Team as an Operational Planning Lead at London Gatwick Airport

Salary: £50k+ (depending on skills, experience and ability to demonstrate results)

A rare opportunity has arisen for an experienced Operational Planning Lead to join our senior team at Gatwick Airport, one of Europe’s busiest and most dynamic transport hubs.

This is a pivotal role at the centre of a complex, high-volume operation comprising over 45,000 parking spaces, valet arrivals every ~22 seconds (at peak), up to 99,000 bus passengers per week and a workforce of up to 350 colleagues.

The Role

As Operational Planning Lead, you will lead the planning of operational throughput and resource allocation, ensuring efficiency, resilience and service excellence across parking and busing operations.

You will transform data into actionable insight, implement forward-thinking planning models, and embed structured decision-making frameworks that drive measurable performance improvement.

Working closely with, and reporting into the Contract Manager, you will help steer operational strategy and deliver initiatives across the wider team. While the role has no direct reports, strong stakeholder management and influencing skills are essential.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement a scientific, forward-thinking approach to labour and resource planning in a dynamic airport environment.

• Lead Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) alignment to forecast demand and optimise capacity.

• Analyse operational performance, booking trends and customer feedback to identify improvement opportunities.

• Streamline processes, remove bottlenecks and apply lean principles to enhance efficiency.

• Oversee asset and infrastructure planning, including maintenance and disruption management.

• Support operational leadership and deputise for the Operations Manager when required.

About You

You are an analytical and strategic thinker with proven experience in operations planning. Experience from transportation, logistics, aviation, manufacturing or similarly complex environments would be advantageous.

Your Skillset

• Advanced Excel and strong analytical capability.

• The ability to translate complex data into clear, practical action.

• A track record of improving operational efficiency and resource modelling.

• Confidence influencing stakeholders at all levels.

• A proactive, solutions-focused approach.

This is more than a planning role. It is an opportunity to shape operational excellence at scale within a fast-moving airport environment.

 If you are ready to lead through insight, drive performance and play a key role in the future of NCP at Gatwick, apply today!