Key Account Manager - Land

Location:

Bristol, United Kingdom

Thales is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents. With over 7,500 people in the UK, operating across defence, space, aerospace, and digital security, we help build a future we can all trust. Thales supports the security and stability of our nation by providing extraordinary technology to our customers, as well as delivering social value to the UK with our products and services.

Key Account Manager
- Land

Business Growth UK

Location: Flexible UK with regular engagement across MOD, Army, DE&S and the wider Defence community

Closing date for applications:
Friday 20th November 2026

Build relationships that create growth. Shape partnerships that matter.

At Thales, our most successful Key Account Managers are trusted relationship builders, strategic thinkers and commercially minded leaders who thrive in complex environments. They bring people together, build credibility through collaboration and create opportunities that deliver long-term value for both customers and the business.

We're looking for an experienced defence professional with either an established network across the UK Land domain or a military background, ideally with experience working alongside the British Army or wider Defence community. You'll have a natural ability to build trusted relationships, understand customer priorities and bring people together to achieve shared goals.

This is a highly visible role where you'll act as a key representative of Thales to strategic customers, developing lasting partnerships, identifying growth opportunities and helping align expertise from across the organisation to deliver exceptional customer outcomes.

As a Key Account Manager, you will develop and lead the strategy for strategically important customer accounts, creating long-term growth plans that align customer objectives with Thales' broad portfolio of capabilities.

You’ll spend your time building meaningful relationships, understanding customer challenges and ambitions, uncovering opportunities and bringing together colleagues from across Thales to deliver value.

Success in this role will come from your ability to:

• Build trusted relationships across customer organisations and the wider defence community.
• Develop a deep understanding of customer strategies, priorities, budgets and future capability requirements.
• Create and deliver strategic Account Plans that align customer ambitions with Thales' growth objectives.
• Identify and develop strategic initiatives that create value beyond existing programmes and contracts.
• Act as the voice of the customer within Thales, ensuring customer priorities are understood and reflected across the organisation.
• Collaborate with and influence cross-functional teams across sales, capture, programmes, services, marketing and business leadership.
• Support the development of major opportunities, bids and campaigns that contribute to future growth.
• Establish effective governance and stakeholder engagement plans that strengthen relationships at all levels.
• Enhance customer satisfaction, trust and long-term partnership.
• Monitor market trends and competitor activity to identify emerging opportunities and risks.
• Deliver sustainable growth in customer value and long-term account resilience.

This role would suit someone who enjoys building relationships, connecting people and creating strategic influence through collaboration and credibility.

You’ll likely bring:

• Experience with in the UK Defence sector.
• An established network within the Land environment, British Army, MOD, DE&S or wider Defence community.
• A track record of building and growing strategic customer relationships.
• Strong commercial awareness with experience…