Project Controls Manager

Company Overview

Upchurch is a rapidly growing, full-service building engineering company providing mechanical, plumbing, HVAC, and electrical services across the southeastern United States. Founded in 1970 and headquartered in Horn Lake, MS, Upchurch has grown through both organic expansion and strategic acquisitions, establishing a strong reputation for quality, reliability, and service excellence. We offer end-to-end solutions—from design and installation to ongoing maintenance and emergency support—helping clients maximize building performance, energy efficiency, and equipment lifespan.

Position Summary

The Project Controls Manager provides leadership for project controls across assigned construction projects. This role has responsibility for project controls budgets, forecasting, cost performance, and financial reporting; serves as a project-controls liaison with owners and project stakeholders; and leads, develops, and oversees schedulers and project controls professionals. The position implements consistent standards, ensures reliable schedule and cost information, identifies and mitigates performance risks, and provides actionable insight that supports informed business decisions and successful project outcomes.

Essential Duties:

The essential duties below are intended to summarize the primary responsibilities of the position and are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, or activities that may be required.

• Manage project controls fiscal activities for assigned projects, including project controls budgets, cost baselines, forecasts, estimate-at-completion projections, cash-flow reporting, variance analysis, and financial performance recommendations.
• Serve as the project controls representative in owner meetings, presenting schedule, cost, risk, change, and performance information; resolving concerns; and aligning reporting expectations and recovery strategies.

• Lead, assign, and review the work of schedulers and project controls staff across assigned projects; establish priorities, balance resources, coach team members, and ensure timely, accurate deliverables.
• Implement project controls standards and accountability for schedule and cost performance, including review of baselines, forecasts, reporting packages, corrective-action plans, and project controls procedures; coordinate required approvals with project leadership.

• Develop, maintain, and analyze integrated project schedules in Primavera P6, including baselines, logic, milestones, resource loading, and critical path activities, to provide a reliable framework for project execution and performance measurement.
• Establish and maintain cost baselines, budgets, and forecasts to provide clear financial performance targets and support effective project cost control.

• Collect, validate, and integrate project progress, labor, cost, procurement, and field data to ensure project controls information is accurate, timely, and reliable.
• Monitor project performance against approved schedules, budgets, forecasts, and productivity expectations and assess related risks to identify emerging issues before they materially affect project outcomes.

• Analyze schedule logic, float, critical path impacts, labor productivity, resource utilization, earned value metrics, and cost trends to identify performance drivers and recommend corrective action.
• Develop recovery plans, mitigation strategies, and scenario analyses with project teams to address schedule delays, cost pressures, resource constraints, and other execution risks.

• Evaluate scope changes, change orders, and evolving project conditions for schedule, cost, and resource impacts to support informed change management and customer decisions.
• Prepare and present dashboards, forecasts, schedule updates, variance analyses, and performance metrics to provide project teams and leadership with clear, actionable visibility into project health.

• Collaborate with project managers, superintendents, engineering, procurement, and finance teams, subcontractors, and other stakeholders to align project controls, resource planning, and construction execution across concurrent projects.
• Develop and maintain standardized project controls procedures, scheduling practices, reporting templates, and data requirements to improve consistency, comparability, and reliability across assigned projects.

• Manage and develop schedulers and project controls professionals through goal setting, workload planning, technical direction, quality review, coaching, and performance feedback.
• All other duties as assigned.

Qualification Requirements:

The qualifications outlined below represent the knowledge, skills, abilities, education, and experience required to perform the essential functions of this role successfully. Upchurch is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities to enable them to perform the essential functions of the position.

Minimum:

• Bachelor's degree in Construction Management, Engineering, Project Management, or a related field, or four additional years of directly relevant experience in lieu of a Bachelor’s degree.
• 7 years of progressively responsible experience in project controls, construction scheduling, cost controls, forecasting, or a closely related discipline, including at least 2 years leading schedulers or project controls professionals.

• Advanced proficiency in Primavera P6 Scheduler, including developing, maintaining, updating, and analyzing complex, logic-driven project schedules.
• Demonstrated experience managing integrated schedule, cost, progress, forecast, and performance information for large or complex construction projects, with responsibility for project cost controls and regular owner-facing engagement.

• Experience analyzing critical path activities, schedule and cost variances, productivity trends, project risks, and recovery options.

Preferred:

• Experience managing a project controls team, including workload planning, performance management, budget responsibility, and leadership or owner presentations.
• Experience supporting large-scale MEP, industrial, commercial, or mission-critical construction projects.

• Experience providing project controls support across multiple concurrent projects or a large, complex program.
• Experience with earned value management (EVM), estimate-at-completion forecasting, productivity analysis, risk modeling, and cash-flow reporting.

• Experience developing or improving scheduling procedures, project controls processes, data standards, and reporting templates.
• Familiarity with subcontractor scheduling, procurement tracking, commissioning, turnover, and project closeout requirements.

• Relevant professional certification such as AACE International Planning & Scheduling Professional (PSP), Certified Cost Professional (CCP), or PMI Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP).

Benefits:

• Competitive pay based on experience.
• Health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Paid time off and holiday pay.
• Opportunities for professional development and certification assistance.

Equal Employment Opportunity:

Upchurch Companies provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type based on race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.