Role Location – It’s a national role & open across all locations in UK.
Atkins, a member of the SNC-Lavalin Group, is one of the world’s leading multi-disciplinary consultancy firms offering unparalleled opportunities for talented individuals in search of a rewarding career. Due to a growing workload and exciting growth plans we are looking for a new Director or Associate Director. The successful candidate will work within a dynamic Planning and Economics team and collaboratively across Atkins to identify new strategic and economic planning opportunities, win work and lead projects. We are very proud of our inclusive, collaborative working culture and can offer true flexibility in terms of working arrangements.
We are looking for an experienced and self-motivated Strategic Planner/Economic Planner to join our successful and progressive national Planning team to strengthen our skills base and help us deliver our expanding strategic and economic planning workload for a wide range of clients in the public and private sectors. The successful candidate will combine an excellent track record in planning with experience in providing advice to our growing markets in the development, transportation, energy, and water sectors. You will play a key role in the further development of our growing national and international business.
Our team is one of the UK’s leading planning consultancies, at the forefront of thought-leadership in planning and delivery of infrastructure and development and the use of digital data to support our work. We provide strategic planning, business case and economic development advice in the UK to central government and its agencies, local enterprise partnerships, local authorities, combined authorities and the private sector. In the UK we provide planning support to central government (MHCLG, DfT), and its agencies, Highways England, Homes England, Greater London Authority/Transport for London, HS2, Network Rail, Transport for the North, West of England Combined Authority and many local enterprise partnerships, local authorities and utility companies. We also work with colleagues leading international development work for funding institutions and government bodies.
We recognise the importance and benefits of helping our employees balance work and home life and we offer flexible working arrangements. We operate flexibly across the UK so you could work from London, Bristol, Birmingham, Warrington, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds or Epsom. There may be opportunities to work out of other UK offices or client offices, where the need arises, to meet the demands of fluctuating workloads.
Key Responsibilities:
- Take a leadership role in providing professional strategic planning and/or economic development advice on a variety of projects.
- Play a prominent role in work winning and contributing to revenue growth.
- Proactively develop strong and credible client relationships and promote the broad capabilities of Atkins.
- Work collaborative with colleagues across Atkins and Faithful + Gould to win complex multi-disciplinary projects and successfully deliver them.
- Utilise effective Business Development capabilities to maximise new opportunities
- Develop and maintain internal and external relationships to ensure we position ourselves well within the market and assemble technically excellent project teams.
- Manage strategic planning and economic research, evidence base and policy development including for example: local plan support and evidence, city and regional plans (primarily in the UK), assess development potential, inform masterplans, support the case for funding bids, infrastructure and delivery studies and business case development. Experience of Economic Impact Assessment and Green Book economic appraisals would be advantageous.
- Deliver high quality advice, reports and presentations based on sound and robust quantitative and qualitative analyses.
- Lead and support strategic planning advice to external and internal clients on planning. consents and development delivery strategies for development and infrastructure projects
- Manage client communication, reporting and stakeholder engagement.
- Identify and pursue thought-leadership activities including writing articles and presenting at webinars/conferences.
- Financial management of projects.
- Provide mentoring and support to junior staff to help the team develop its national capabilities.
You as an individual
- You must be self-motivated, enthusiastic, determined, resilient with an ability to inspire and be able to demonstrate that you can:
- Flexibly apply your knowledge and experience to winning, managing and delivering a wide variety of strategic planning and economic studies and projects.
- With a proven track record, be able to contribute significantly to leading bids, winning work and generating revenue growth.
- Work under pressure, with excellent time management skills and success in meeting tight deadlines.
- Work well with the confidence to lead projects or input effectively as a discipline lead as part of multi-disciplinary teams across a range of projects.
- Deliver reports and other outputs with multiple inputs to a high standard of presentation and accuracy.
- Demonstrate strong verbal communication skills and your aptitude to rationally explain, explore and discuss planning issues to clients and to internal and external audiences.
Requirements:
- Ideally you will already be an Associate or Director at another leading Consultancy in the UK.
- Proven track record of winning and retaining business across multiple sectors.
- Proven experience in the management and delivery of major multi-disciplinary projects.
- Proven ability to influence and respond to emerging national, regional and local policy and legislation and regulation.
- Commercial awareness and proven ability to manage budgets.
- Experienced in meeting clients and managing their needs in a confident, professional manner.
- A relevant planning, economics or related degree and full professional body membership (such as RTPI or RICS)
Training
Atkins develops individuals through a portfolio of training and development activities designed to help you make the best of your abilities and talents. These are reviewed with individuals through an annual appraisal process. We actively support staff in achieving corporate membership of relevant institutions.
Rewards and Benefits
Please refer to our website for details of our full benefits package https://yourrewarduk.snclavalin.com/
This role may require security clearance and offers of employment will be dependent on obtaining the relevant level of clearance. If this is necessary, it will be discussed with you at interview.
If applying to this role please do not make reference to (in conversation) or include in your application or CV, details of any current or previously held security clearance.
Atkins recognise that there are many well qualified people who are looking to further their career, but who cannot commit to full time employment. We support flexible working arrangements and are interested to discuss how we can accommodate individual requirements.
ATKINS, part of the SNC Lavalin Group, is committed to having a diverse and inclusive workforce. As an Equal Opportunities Employer, we value applications from all backgrounds, cultures and ability.
