Technical Director​/Professional Head of Discipline

Job Description Overview

You might know us for the great work we do across our wide variety of projects. We’re proud to say it’s thanks to our people’s diversity of thought, expertise, and knowledge. And when you join us, you’ll be a part of this genuinely collaborative environment, where everyone’s voice is valued and treated equally.

We’re passionate about what we do, and we have a thriving team culture, simply put, this is a great place to be. So, when it comes to your life outside of work, ask us about our flexible and remote working policies designed to help you get the most out of life.

Our wide variety of clients span across the UK and internationally and include UK water companies, local authorities, highways / rail authorities, and developers. Our collaborative and multi-disciplinary team is one of the largest in the UK, providing water and wastewater infrastructure services alongside infrastructure drainage design, SuDS and surface water management along with DWMP.

Each of these disciplines is headed by a Technical Discipline Lead (TDL):

• Urban Drainage.
• Clean Water.
• Drainage Design.
• Surface Water Management and Green Infrastructure.
• DWMP.

We are in the process of formalising Technical Networks for Project Management and Network design to support our growth and technical excellence ambitions.

This Position is open for our Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Derby, Edinburgh, Epsom, Glasgow, London, Peterborough and Manchester Offices.

With expertise in one or more of these areas, the PhoD will take on focused development of one or more Technical Disciplines by supporting/leading in the expansion of a range of “service lines” within the discipline to support the growth and technical development of this discipline including but not limited to:

• Identify and lead aspects of Technical Assurance and Excellence.
• Developing strategies, plans and structures aligned with industry needs and trends to grow the technical teams into the future.
• Acting as a technical expert in their own field with clients.
• Representing Atkins Realis at industry events.
• Development and implementation of digital tools.
• Support the current TDLs and Practice Management team in delivery and strategy development.
• Driving staff development initiatives to maximise the effectiveness of our talent pools.
• Work closely with other disciplines and teams across the business to maximise our future workload diversification and emerging opportunities.
• Work with TDLs and service line leaders to build organisational and sub-structures across all the regions and to represent overseas work.
• Identify opportunities to engage with Universities and Technical Colleges to advance knowledge sharing and promote resource acquisition.

Market strategy

• Strategic contribution - to the overall market strategy and business plans.
• External profile - able to demonstrate a quality external network of clients, stakeholders and partners, and comfortable to lead external engagement and events.
• Growth - of specific service lines within area of expertise.
• Relationships - work across the Atkins Realis business to understand and sell our full range of capabilities.

Client relationships

• Key Account Management - deliver first-class service provisions to develop strong, long lasting and profitable relationships.
• Client expert - understand in detail the client’s strategy, organisational design, key points of influence, culture, external drivers and their challenges, risks and opportunities.

Technical Excellence

• Across each of our technical networks support the TDLs development plans.
• Identification of client drivers and needs – prioritise proposition and service development to address needs, working closely with business development, our technical capabilities and marketing colleagues.

Key measures

• Development of Technical capability throughout our technical networks.
• Support Practices to deliver on growth plan success measures.
• Contribution to meeting client outcome based KPIs.

Key characteristics

This role will likely suit someone who has:

• Deep understanding of the UK Water Market and Clients.
• Credible Technical experience in one of the Technical Disciplines.
• The ability to build…