What Does a Maintenance Planning Supervisor Do?
Plenty of repair delays start in the office. Maintenance planning supervisors lead the planners, schedulers and work control staff who turn work orders into each shop's schedule at hospitals, universities, plants and other big sites. Their plans decide which job happens next.
Also known as: Maintenance Scheduler Supervisor, Work Management Supervisor
Maintenance Planning Supervisor Duties and Responsibilities
The primary responsibilities of a maintenance planning supervisor include:
- Supervise planners, schedulers and work control staff who take and route maintenance requests.
- Chair the weekly scheduling meeting with shop leads and agree on the next week's work.
- Set rules for work order priorities so emergencies, repairs and routine tasks are ranked the same way.
- Audit work orders for missing labor, parts or notes, and coach planners on the gaps.
- Manage the maintenance software setup, including user roles, asset records and preventive maintenance schedules.
- Publish backlog, cost and schedule-compliance reports for facilities leaders and building managers.
- Hire and train planners, and cover their desks during vacations and busy periods.
- Resolve disputes between shops and customers over job scope, timing or charges.
- Improve request forms and service catalogs so customers describe problems clearly from the start.
- Plan staffing for major shutdowns, building openings and seasonal work such as chiller startup.
Required Skills and Qualifications
To succeed as a maintenance planning supervisor, you will need the following skills and qualifications:
- Advanced use of CMMS software such as IBM Maximo or AiM
- Supervising and coaching office staff
- Excel and reporting tools such as Power BI
- Maintenance planning and scheduling methods
- Understanding of building trades and their workloads
- Setting priorities under pressure
- Diplomacy with shop leads and customers
- Process writing and training
Education and Training
With experience, a maintenance planner or scheduler could progress to this post, and some supervisors come up from the trades instead. Landing it without a degree might be possible, since BLS lists a high school diploma as typical for office supervisors, but a bachelor's in facilities or business management can give you an edge over other applicants. Planning experience matters most.
Salary and Job Outlook
Typical pay: varies widely for this role, and BLS does not publish pay for it separately. In the wider BLS group it belongs to (First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers), the middle half of earners made $55,950 to $85,090 a year, and the median was $69,500.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers.
Employment of first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers, the broad group that includes this role, is projected to rise about 0.1 percent from 2025 to 2035, according to BLS. In other words, the group is holding steady. The same projections still show about 127,400 openings a year, though only a small number of them are in maintenance departments. Planners who can show better schedule compliance or a shrinking backlog are more likely to be picked when a supervisor post opens.
Outlook source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, 2025 to 2035, First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers.