Practice Director – Local Transport Market Partner

Oversight of the portfolio of work winning and project delivery activity of the Engineering Practice within Strategic Highways/Local Transport/Strategic Rail, by working in partnership with the Technical Practices, Professional Heads of Discipline, Digital Practice and Early Careers Practice.  Be the single point of contact for bid and project leaders to access multi-disciplinary services from the Engineering Practice where these come from the different technical practices.

Motivating our people through effective performance and development plans that align to their career opportunities.

Facilitate growth of the Transportation Division through proactive implementation of its Strategy and Market Plans within the Practice.

Maintaining utilisation within the team in the UK and the Global Design Centre in India through maximising the opportunities for the Practice to deliver both practice and market led projects and frameworks within the given market.

In conjunction with the Practice Director (Operations), ensuring we have sufficient resources with the right skills to deliver our current and future market strategies. This includes those within the practice, colleagues in our GDC and through our supply chain partners.

Collaborate with the Market and Business Development teams and ensure practice staff engage with clients and actively sell our technical capabilities.  Facilitate the flow of market and client intelligence from the Practice into the market teams.

Ensure the market understands the value-added skills and services the Practice can offer and develop.

Facilitate the digital delivery and automation of all engineering services delivered into the markets.

Work winning: Gather market intelligence and feed it to the Market teams.  Pass information on market conditions to the Practice teams.  Maintaining the Practice pipeline in the relevant market.  Take on bid leadership roles and develop others in bid leadership capability.  Work with the Markets to develop compelling client propositions.

Delivery: provide governance to the delivery of Practice led projects.  Support and Direct Project Managers accountable for project performance.  Set project delivery and resource strategy taking account of project and practice objectives.  Champion efficiency and client value in delivery. Undertake some project director roles.

Clients: lead on client engagement; capture information and participate in Market Key Account Management teams.  Own non-key accounts in relevant markets.  Prepare client engagement plans at Practice level.

Resource management:  Work with technical and Early Careers practices, and the GDC, to ensure that current projects are adequately resourced to meet delivery targets.  Developing resource requirements for current and future opportunities.  Contributing to workforce planning by identifying longer term market trends and working with the technical teams to respond appropriately. Developing our supply chain through identifying and building relationships with suppliers who can add value to our business.

Improvement and change: identifying needs or opportunities for process improvement.  Leading improvement projects. Supporting the digital agenda through client engagement and implementation in project delivery.  Support evolution of the business to be well positioned for market and other changes.

Leadership and development of the team of around 20 senior people with market and client knowledge.

Promote collaboration across markets and divisions.

Encourage technical excellence within the market in collaboration with the Practice Technical Director and Professional Heads of Discipline.

Facilitate thought leadership, technical best practice, effective project delivery, knowledge sharing, and process standardisation / optimisation within the market.

Responsible for work winning and delivering the significant volume of projects that reside outside the Market team and the Project Delivery practice.

Engage with clients and lead by example to sell and position Atkins technical capabilities in the markets.

Optimise component of practice work delivered from the GDC.

Identify where skills are not available in-house and create relationships with external partners and SMEs to meet project needs.

Promote Project Management (PM) excellence within the Practice through improving PM capability in conjunction with Project Delivery.

Inform evolution of practice organisational structure to align with future market requirements.

Maintain succession plans for the market facing team within the practice.

Work with other Practice Directors in Engineering to provide consistency of approach across the Practice.

Support Practice Director – Engineering in preparing practice budgets and forecast.

Ensure the appropriate governance measures are applied in the business.

Framework management / director and maximising returns / cross-selling / up-selling from existing contracts

Proven experience in related role.

Outstanding leadership and interpersonal skills.

Relevant experience of working in a rail, highways or related infrastructure design practice.

Strong collaborative behaviours to interface with other Practice Directors, Market teams and Project Delivery, and other members of the Transportation team.

Performance focus with a desire for continuous improvement.

Ability to engage with clients to develop and expand technical capabilities to fulfil market and client needs.

Can translate market requirements from the market and BD teams into new or enhanced propositions. Always looking for opportunities to sell and position Atkins in our markets.

The role can be based in any of Transportation’s offices; but regular travel will be needed to engage with the national team.

Part-time or other flexible working arrangements will be considered.

An inclusive leader, who promotes diversity of approaches and thinking to foster creativity.

Ability to position Atkins as a supplier with a reputation for technical excellence and quality of delivery.

A committed and flexible individual, who is reliable, proactive and innovative, whilst able to keep calm under pressure and when working to often demanding deadlines.

A high expectation of performance for themselves and other members of the team, coupled with a focus on continuous improvement.

Customer focused with excellent relationship management skills.

Excellent interpersonal, organisational and communication skills both verbally and in writing.

Ability to build and motivate a team and demonstrate good leadership qualities. Self-motivated and able to work both on their own and within a larger multi-discipline team.

A supportive and encouraging approach to mentoring less experienced members of the team, combined with a passion for staff development.

Ability to adapt to different cultures and working environments to build rapport with both clients and the practice teams.

Be available to travel across the UK and occasional work away from home, including short periods overseas on assignments.

A sound business acumen.

Excellent team player, able to influence technical and delivery staff, and collaborate effectively with other divisional colleagues and with the UK team.

Ability to fully engage staff through their alignment with business objectives, promoting involvement, and fostering loyalty.

Establish external networks which positively influence business opportunities.

Manage the relationship between the Market and Technical Practices to ensure a common understanding of business requirements, enable effective resource management and to enable clients to receive outstanding levels of service.

Deliver market revenue and margin targets.

Revenue and margin targets for Practice area technical sales.

Value creation through technical excellence strategy.

Revenue against budget sent to GDC.

Growth in Engineering services delivered within Transportation.

Use of automation and digital tools.

Development of supply chain relationships and use of suppliers.

Breakeven of Engineering Practice.