Practice Director - Networks and Drainage Engineering

Atkins Infrastructure business are looking to appoint a Practice Director for our national Networks and Drainage Engineering (N&DE) practice, part of the Engineering Practice. The role of Practice Director will involve the leadership of over 200 well-respected Water, Drainage, Stormwater & Wastewater Engineers and will form part of the overall Engineering Practice management team.

As N&DE Engineering Practice Director you will be responsible for enhancing our technical excellence, enthusing our people and working collaboratively to both win and deliver work across our target markets. Leading the Practice to embrace changes in the Water sector will be essential.

Closing Date: Friday 16th November 2018


Responsibilities:

• Lead a practice group recognised for technical excellence and ability to flexibly respond to business needs
• Provide line management to Practice Managers and Technical Authorities.
• Drive technical best practice, knowledge sharing and process standardisation / optimisation across practice group.
• Responsible for winning work through maximising additional/repeat/follow-on work from clients.
• Liaise through the Practice Director with the Market Directors to establish resource demand based on pipeline of opportunities in collaboration with divisional resource managers.
• Work with Divisional Technical Director to drive collaboration across markets and divisions.
• Responsible for winning work through maximising additional/repeat/follow-on work from clients.
• Ensure skills and capacity meet the needs of the target markets through targeted recruitment and focused staff development.
• Maximise component of resource group work delivered from the Global Design Centre in India.
• Identify where skills are not available in-house and work with external alliance partners and subcontractors to deliver project needs.
• Motivate managers and team members ensuring they are challenged, stretched and developed with succession plans in place.
• Working with our business change team help develop a strong digital culture across the division. Act as a catalyst to encourage agile and organisationally disruptive ‘post-bureaucratic’ technical networks to embed collaborative digital excellence on the ‘shop floor’.
• Differentiation - develop innovative intellectual capital and rare skills within a client intimacy / technical excellence framework to create differentiated services for which clients are prepared to pay a premium.
• Resource Management – ensure the Practice has the skills and capacity to meet market demand in line with budget targets

Requirements

• Proven experience in a leadership role - preferably in the same practice area or in a comparable area
• Able to lead the practice so that it has a reputation for technical innovation and service excellence in a relevant discipline(s)
• Able to build and motivate a team and demonstrate good leadership qualities
• Strong collaborative behaviours to interface with Practice Directors, Market Directors and other stakeholders
• Customer centric; an ability and desire to engage with clients and to develop and expand technical capabilities to fulfil market and client needs.
• Track record in business development, sales and delivery of consultancy services in our target markets
• Ability to drive adoption of automation and digital skills and products.
• Established relationships with existing and prospective clients in our target markets.
• Able to adapt to different cultures and working environments to build rapport with both clients and the practice teams
• Able to fully engage staff through their alignment with business objectives, promoting involvement and fostering loyalty
• Be available to travel across the UK and overseas as required

Preferable Requirement:

• Ability to act as a Professional Head of Discipline (PHoD) for a technical discipline, ensure professionalism within the Practice and a client-centric approach to technical innovation and service excellence.
• Lead the development and adoption of new technologies and ways of working with a strong focus on the application of data management (Digital BIM) and automation to meet client needs and improve our efficiency/effectiveness.

Role Location: Strong preference for candidates to be based from an Infrastructure Hub Office (Birmingham, Bristol, Epsom, Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and Warrington)


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.