Early Careers Lead - EIMEA

Arup’s purpose, shared values and collaborative approach has set us apart for over 75 years, guiding how we shape a better world.

Arup is the creative force at the heart of many of the world’s most prominent projects in the built and natural environment. Working in more than 140 countries, the firm’s designers, engineers, architects, planners, consultants, and technical specialists work with our clients on innovative projects of the highest quality and impact. As a wholly independent organisation, we are owned in trust for the benefit of our employees and their dependants: with no shareholders or external investors we determine our own business priorities and direction.

The Early Careers Lead is responsible for regional delivery of the global Early Careers framework, embedding consistent standards, coordinating campaign activity, coaching recruiters, and supporting continuous improvement. The role ensures the Early Careers strategy and programmes are embedded into local contexts while remaining consistent with global objectives and standards.

Key responsibilities include owning the design and execution of strategies to attract, engage, and hire top early-career talent across their assigned region while being a key partner to the business and senior leaders. This is a critical role in embedding and ope rationalising the early careers recruitment framework.

• Embed and operationalize Arup’s global early careers strategy within the region, ensure consistent application of global standards while adapting for local regulations, cultural expectations, and market dynamics.
• Play a leading role in Early Careers work streams to develop and evolve the global framework including but not limited to; technology, demand, assessment and programmatic approaches.
• Work with People Partnering teams and business leaders to forecast demand to ensure timely delivery of talent pipelines.

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of early careers recruiters, fostering a high-performance and collaborative culture.
• Allocate work, set priorities, and ensure consistent delivery standards across all recruitment activity. Establish ways of working that support collaboration, continuous improvement, and a positive team culture.
• Alongside Global Early Careers Operations Leader, work with the RPO to ensure a strong relationship with the RPO team and ensure smooth delivery of key campaigns.

• Drive innovative sourcing strategies leveraging technology, social media, and data analytics.
• Build strong relationships with universities, professional organizations, and diversity partners to expand talent pools. Represent Arup at campus and in‑office events, conferences, virtual fairs, and industry forums to strengthen our employer brand.
• Build and maintain early career talent pipelines to ensure a strong and consistent pool of candidates.
• Partner with EDI teams to embed and uphold inclusive practices to source diverse early careers talent.

• Own demand fulfilment by overseeing the full‑cycle recruitment for early careers programs, ensuring compliance with local regulations and global standards, ensure an exceptional candidate journey from application through onboarding.
• Implement relevant process improvements to reduce time‑to‑offer and enhance efficiency.
• Oversee the summer intern program and intern conversion process within the region, ensuring this return on investment, building a key graduate talent pipeline.

• Monitor recruitment metrics through regular reporting and end of season reviews to regional and global leadership to understand effectiveness of processes, refine strategies and improve outcomes.
• Stay up to date with market trends, competitor activity and innovations, bringing in external thought leadership.

• Delivery of overall regional campaign aligned to core KPIs including:
• Candidate Experience – time to offer, time in process and feedback
• Fulfilment – delivery against forecasted demand
• Harmonisation – successful embedding of global processes and ways of working
• Return…