Associate Landscape Architects - Once in lifetime

Role – Associate Landscape Architect – Opportunity of a Lifetime

(Major UK Destination Project)

Location – Bedfordshire

Salary – £DOE

Can you find a more exciting role than this for a landscape architect?

Lead careers are delighted to be exclusively recruiting for one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies who are delivering a £6bn destination project that is set to become one of Europe’s leading theme parks and the UK’s most significant visitor attractions.

These exclusive roles are for associate landscape architects to join their brand-new UK-based core project team to work alongside a large multidisciplinary group of experienced specialists from the US. Interviews are taking place immediately, with a quick start available. By 2031, the destination is expected to employ around 9,000 people and landscape will play a central role in how this place will be experienced, remembered and talked about by all who visit.

Apart from having the chance to be part of this amazing adventure, the design and spatial sequencing will be driven by storytelling, imagination and guest experience, rather than policy constraints. The way this project is set up offers a level of creative freedom that most landscape architects will never experience in their careers, allowing landscape architecture to lead rather than compromise.

While the official job title will be ´Landscaping Development Design Manager´, this is very much a Senior/Associate landscape architecture role, responsible for the design, coordination and on-site delivery of large-scale themed outdoor environments.

At Universal parks, landscape architecture is central to how guests move between worlds. The landscape isn’t just there to frame attractions, it actively guides people from one environment to the next and helps set the mood along the way.

Landscape elements such as planting, landform, water and spatial layout are used to subtly shift mood and pace as guests move through the park. Design teams carefully choreograph these transitions, guiding visitors from tightly framed streets that feel like detailed movie sets, into expansive, high-energy landscapes before drawing them into darker, more enclosed environments that echo recognisable scenes from iconic films and movies we've all seen so many times.

• Lead landscape and area development design for entire themed lands and zones
• Shape site-wide layouts for guest areas, hotels, team member facilities and supporting infrastructure
• Develop planting strategies, grading, drainage, irrigation, hardscape, furnishings and detailed construction documentation
• Work closely with architects, engineers, creative directors, ride and show designers to deliver cohesive, immersive environments
• Manage and direct external design consultants and specialist vendors
• Present design intent, technical solutions and cost considerations to internal and external stakeholders
• Take projects through construction, including bid reviews, contractor coordination and on-site installation
• Review shop drawings, oversee mock-ups and first-article installations, and protect design intent on site

As this is likely to be totally different to anything you´ve done previously, you will be working directly with highly experienced teams both in the UK and the USA who have delivered some of the world’s most immersive themed environments. This provides first‑hand exposure to how landscape architecture drives guest experience at the highest level, with those lessons applied directly to the UK project.

• These opportunities for Associate level (or above) Landscape Architects who:
• Have experience delivering complex or large‑scale landscape projects
• Genuinely loves theme parks and immersive, fantasy world building
• Wants to be involved from early design through to construction on site
• Enjoys leading teams and working within large, multidisciplinary environments

Enthusiasm for themed entertainment is absolutely essential. This is a role for someone who is genuinely excited by the idea of building worlds and loves…