Business Development Manager, Construction & Utilities

Business Development Manager, Construction & Utilities

Location:

London, UK (or Aylesbury)

Department:
Commercial | Type:
Permanent, Full time

Founded in 2018, Skyports is at the forefront of the Advanced Air Mobility revolution, developing and operating cutting‑edge infrastructure for electric air taxis and leveraging drone technology to transform business operations across industries.

Our business is split into two key areas:

• Skyports Drone Services – uses drones to streamline logistics, capture data, and enhance operational efficiency, with a focus on rural deliveries, surveying, surveillance, and maritime services.
• Skyports Infrastructure – plays a vital role in the Urban Air Mobility ecosystem, designing, building, owning, and operating vertiports that enable eVTOL operators to take off and land in cities around the world.

With our presence in this dynamic, high‑growth industry, there has never been a more exciting time to be part of our mission to reshape the future of air mobility.

The Business Development Manager will own customer opportunities from initial engagement through to contract award, mobilisation and account growth.

You will build senior customer relationships, understand operational problems, shape commercially viable drone‑service solutions and coordinate internal teams to deliver proposals, demonstrations, paid trials, tenders and long‑term contracts. This is not a transactional sales role. Sales cycles are often complex and involve operational, technical, regulatory, procurement, legal and senior executive stakeholders.

You will need to create momentum, maintain commercial discipline and convert early‑stage customer interest into dependable, recurring services.

• Own and grow relationships with major construction companies, utilities, infrastructure owners and engineering partners.
• Develop new opportunities through targeted outbound activity, partnerships, industry networks, events and inbound leads.
• Engage senior stakeholders including Project Directors, Asset Managers, Survey Leads, Innovation Leads, Engineering teams, Digital teams and procurement functions.
• Manage opportunities from qualification through discovery, demonstration, proposal, negotiation and contract award.
• Build account plans for priority customers and identify opportunities for multi‑site, multi‑region and multi‑year expansion.
• Lead customer meetings, workshops, demonstrations, site visits and paid trials.
• Understand customer operations and translate their requirements into clear commercial and operational propositions.
• Develop proposals, pricing models, business cases and negotiation strategies.
• Lead or support responses to RFIs, PQQs, RFPs, ITTs and framework opportunities.
• Coordinate colleagues across Flight Operations, Regulation, Technology, Product, Finance and Legal.
• Maintain accurate forecasts, pipeline information and next steps within Hub Spot.
• Manage the commercial handover into delivery and retain oversight during mobilisation.
• Ensure that customer commitments, operational scope, pricing and service levels remain aligned.
• Identify and manage commercial, contractual and delivery risks.
• Represent Skyports at relevant industry events, customer forums and site visits.
• Provide market intelligence on customers, competitors, procurement routes and emerging use cases.

• Managed drone‑in‑a‑box services for recurring construction monitoring.
• Regular aerial progress capture, mapping and reporting across major construction programmes.
• Powerline and linear‑infrastructure inspection.
• Detailed RGB and thermal inspection of electricity network assets.
• LiDAR corridor mapping, vegetation analysis and safety‑clearance surveys.
• Automated and remotely operated inspection…