Head of Forecasting and Planning

Role OVO-View

Location: Flexible within the UK, with a need to work with your colleagues at one of our hubs in Bristol, Glasgow or London, on average for 2 days per week. (Must be mobile and able to travel). On occasion you may need to visit other sites used by partners that we work with in the UK and overseas.

Team: Forecasting, Planning & Readiness (FP&R)

Salary banding: £110,000 - £130,000

Experience: Experienced

Working pattern: Full-Time

Reporting to: Director of Customer Enablement

Sponsorship: Unfortunately we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role.

This role in 3 words: Opportunity, Exciting, Connecting

Top 3 qualities for this role: Innovative, Customer focused, Commercially astute

In the words of the team, you should leave your current role for this one because….

You want to be involved in supporting and leading a world class planning team. Overhauling process and technology in a complex operational environment to deliver OVOs mission of powering human progress with clean, affordable energy for everyone. This is a truly once in a lifetime opportunity for someone who wants to build their brand in an amazing company and make their name in an award winning team.

Where you’ll work:

At OVO, we understand that a one size fits all approach doesn’t work for everyone. That’s why we created the OVO Way of Flexibility.

All our roles are hub based (Bristol, Glasgow or London), providing a dedicated space for collaboration, connection and teamwork. You’ll also have the flexibility to work from home.

Everyone belongs at OVO

At OVO, we are on a mission to solve one of humanity's biggest challenges, the climate crisis. And we know it takes all of us to change the world. That's why we need diverse people from all gender identities, ethnicities, ages, sexual orientations, life experiences and backgrounds to join us.

Teamworking for the planet

Everything we do here spins around Plan Zero. So, naturally, the team you’ll be joining plays a gigantic role in making that happen. Here’s how:

We’re hiring world-changers. From Zero Carbon Living Advisors to Product Managers, every role we’re hiring plays their own part in our mission; our role is to find those people and bring them on our Zero Carbon journey.

This role in a nutshell:

We’re looking for a strategic, people focused, experienced planning professional to lead our Forecasting, Planning and Readiness team. This leader will oversee our FP&C team, responsible for ensuring we have the right people in the right place at the right time—supporting a 5,000+ FTE business across Contact Centres, Complaints, Sales, Back Office, and linking in with our Field Operations.

You will be responsible for long-term workforce planning (up to 5 years), operational efficiency, and fostering a world-class planning team. Your team is positioned as part of the ‘Brain’ of the Operation making sure that supply and demand is matched across all of our channels from years out to in the day, owning Live Operations and incident management. You will have to strike a balance between driving cost efficiencies, achieving best in class customer service and supporting various business and people outcomes

The ideal candidate will be a coach-first person who creates a culture of trust, autonomy, and shared responsibility. You’ll empower your team to make smart, data-driven decisions while embedding predictive modeling and forward-thinking intelligence into the way we work. You will be the central connection point across departments, ensuring our planning and forecasting align with business needs, smooth demand, and support operational transformation.

You’ll lead a cross-functional team of 70+ people across the UK and India working as part of the wider Customer Enablement team alongside areas such as Quality Intelligence, Performance & MI and our Systems Configurations teams. You'll often be found building relationships, analysing data and showcasing the operational performance of the business.

Your key outcomes will be:

Strategic Workforce Planning & Live Ops

• Lead long-range forecasting team working up to 5 years out across multiple channels, geographies and disciplines - managing an annual operational budget of +100m
• Ensure operational efficiencies and change are delivered effectively into the business working with key change owners and your business readiness team
• Owning our monthly lock cycles ensuring changes in supply or demand are captured and locked into budgets
• Support overall estate design working with our People / Finance / Operations teams deliver an effective resourcing strategy across our operation
• Creating supply labour strategies to meet demand across both internal and outsourced partner (South Africa, India, UK) to underpin effective delivery against customer demand profiles
• Participate in customer segmentation determining how we effectively route, segment and identify key customers types and deliver a best in class customer experience
• Broker trade offs between operational functions to determine the best use of our FTE budget to deliver against key operational KPIs
• Ensure our scheduled teams receive, manage and deliver against effective schedules
• Oversee our Live Operations function responsible for in day performance and change, ensuring queues are correctly staffed, and that incidents are managed effectively

People & Leadership

• Leads a team of c. 70 subject matter experts across the Forecasting, Planning & Readiness specialism who will help bring the strategy and plans to life 
• Act as the primary strategic partner for senior leaders across Operations, Finance, Field Force, and Change, ensuring planning and transformation efforts are fully aligned
• Foster a culture where the team feels empowered, trusted, and able to take ownership of their work—balancing autonomy with accountability
• Coach the team to make the complex simple - preparing concise updates from complex data sets, outlining options and mitigation, whilst articulating drivers to any variances to plan.

Technology

• Ensure our Workforce Optimisation tool set is fit for purpose and optimised to deliver technology enabled business decision making
• Drive a shift towards forward-thinking, data science-led forecasting—focusing on predictive modeling rather than reactive planning across c. 15 millions customer interactions per year
• Participate in customer segmentation determining how we effectively route, segment and identify key customers types and deliver a best in class customer experience

You’ll be a successful Role Title here at OVO if you…

• Have an ambitious spirit, you'll need to be proactive, and someone who is always up for a challenge
• Have proven leadership in workforce planning, forecasting, and operational strategy within a large-scale, complex environment
• Exceptional stakeholder management—able to influence senior leaders, break down silos, and embed planning into broader business strategy.
• Are an excellent communicator. Your communication skills give you the ability to convey your ideas effectively, tailoring the communication to audiences at all levels of the organisation. 
• Have experience collaborating and influencing multiple partners, gaining alignment and sign-off. Are seen as a thought leader, you can lead without direct control
• Have strong technical and analytical skills with the ability to define, create and use performance metrics to measure performance and understand opportunities within your journey
• Can understand how to link performance to tangible financial opportunities, you’re commercially creative with evidence of high financial acumen
• Have significant experience of managing complex processes in a high risk / regulated environment. Preferably Energy sector knowledge
• A coaching-first leadership approach—able to develop, inspire, and elevate a high-performing team
• Strong expertise in predictive modeling and data-driven forecasting—comfortable driving innovation in this space
• Love being close to the customer- you’ll thrive in researching and understanding customer jobs, turning these into ideas, prototypes and then customer solutions
• A track record of delivering operational efficiencies and supporting large-scale transformation.
• Have a sound understanding of resource planning tools and techniques, WFM and forecasting systems & planning solutions.

Let’s talk about what’s in it for you

We’ll pay you between £110,000 and £130,000, depending on your specific skills and experience. If your expectations are a little different, have a chat with us!

We keep our pay ranges broad on purpose to give us, and you, flexibility to match your experience to our zero carbon mission.

You’ll be eligible for an on-target bonus of 15%. We have one OVO bonus plan that focuses on the collective performance of our people to deliver our Plan Zero goal. 

We also offer plenty of green benefits and progressive policies to help you feel like you belong at OVO…and there’s flex pay.  It’s an extra 9% of your salary on top of your core pay to use as you like. You can take it as cash, add to your pension, or choose to spend it on a huge range of flex benefits.

Here’s a taster of what’s on offer: 

For starters, you’ll get 34 days of holiday (including bank holidays).

For your health
With benefits like a healthcare cash plan or private medical insurance depending on your career level, critical illness cover, life assurance, health assessments, and more

For your wellbeing
With gym membership, gadget, travel and cyber insurance, workplace ISA, will writing services, DNA testing, dental insurance, and more

For your lifestyle
With extra holiday buying, discount dining, culture cards, tech loans, and supporting your favourite charities with give-as-you-earn donations

For your home 
Get up to £300 off any OVO Energy plan (when you pay by Direct Debit), plus personal carbon offsetting and great discounts on smart thermostats and EV chargers

For your commute
Nab a great deal on ultra-low emission car leasing, plus our cycle to work scheme and public transport season ticket loans

Want to hear about our full range of flexible benefits and progressive people policies? Our People Team can tell you everything you need to know.

For your Belonging

To find better ways to support our people, we need to listen to each other’s experiences and find ways to build a truly inclusive and diverse workplace. As part of this, we have 8 Belonging Networks at OVO. Led by our people, for our people - so when you join OVO, you can play a part - big or small - with any of the Networks. It's up to you.

Oh, and one last thing...

We’d be thrilled if you tick off all our boxes yet we also believe it’s just as important we tick off all of yours. And if you think you have most of what we’re looking for but not every single thing, go ahead and hit apply. We’d still love to hear from you! If you have any additional requirements, there’s a space to let us know on the application form; we want to make the process as easy and comfortable for you as possible..