Head of Planning and Environmental Assessment / Consents

At Arcadis we focus on attracting, retaining and developing people who share our passion and commitment to improve quality of life. In return we offer you the opportunity to transform your world and the world around you, that could be through client work, upskilling yourself, championing equality and inclusion or getting involved in charity work, to name just a few. Our people value different perspectives, they care about the sustainability of our planet and dare to shape the future.

One of our core values is ‘people first', and supported by our Lovinklaan foundation, we invest in you for the long term, to ensure you reach your full potential. You'll have the opportunity to own your career and work on industry-defining projects, finding solutions to real challenges that make a difference to people's lives. You're encouraged to have a growth mindset and are given the space to develop personally and professionally, building a flexible career that works for you.

Role description:

The Environmental Planning team is a cross sector, multi-disciplinary team delivering Environmental Planning consulting across the asset life cycle, and across the value chain. Our approx. 300 strong team delivers revenues of circa £17M pa across the Ecology and Arboriculture, Culture Heritage, Acoustics, Air Quality, Landscape, Masterplanning and Urbanism, Town Planning and Consents and Environmental Assessment / Management/Stakeholder/Soico-economic technical disciplines. Together our teams are supporting delivery of some of the UK's largest road and rail projects including Humber, Lower Thames Crossing and High Speed 2. In addition our team has a strong portfolio and pipeline of opportunities across other key sectors including Power & Energy, Government, Water, Defence and Regeneration / Places, particularly residential property.

The team have a clear 2022/23 plan with focus areas for growth, and areas of development of new propositions. Key areas of focus for us include Zero Carbon Masterplanning, Sustainable Planning & Communities, Climate Smart Land Management, and Biodiversity & Nature-based Solutions.

We are committed to the continued growth and development of our people. You will have a strong Growth Mindset and a clear commitment to driving continued skills development across the Environmental Planning business.

We are looking to recruit a Senior Technical Director, to lead our 90+ strong integrated Planning and Environmental Assessment/Consents team, who has with a strong track record of leading the integrated planning and environmental and consenting aspects of complex major, and minor, projects. Our projects span all consenting regimes, all sectors and all phases of the project life cycle from needs case development through to construction. The successful candidate will have proven experience of delivering successful consenting strategies, extensive NSIP experience, and producing robust and high-quality EIAs, winning work, as well as driving excellent collaboration with design teams that drive project success. In our team we work at all stages of the consenting process from early feasibility, application preparation and delivery of consents through construction and on a variety of projects across all sectors.

Role accountabilities:

• Lead and drive the growth of the Planning and Environmental Assessment / Consents team / capability at Arcadis, as part of an integrated team offering
• Support the Environmental Planning Business Director / Environment Sector Leads to pursue new work winning opportunities in line with Arcadis's Growth Strategy
• Managing and driving forward work winning in the team in a professional and responsible manner, collaborating closely across multi-disciplinary teams
• Mentoring colleagues by supporting them in their work winning and project delivery roles.
• Providing technical advice to clients and managing their consenting requirements
• Leading multi-disciplinary teams in winning and delivering work, and growing our technical capability
• Developing and taking to market, value propositions.

Qualifications & Experience:

• Proven track record of delivering projects across multiple consenting regimes,
• Experience across multiple sectors and all stages of the project life cycle
• Demonstrable experience of leading multi-disciplinary teams and growing technical capability
• Leading project teams through planning inquiries or examinations - expert witness experience is desirable.
• Be able to establish a strong internal and external network to support the successful delivery of projects.
• Have experience of working at a senior level with diverse internal and external stakeholders, and evidence of building effective client relationships
• Display first class communication, interpersonal, relationship building, collaboration and influencing skills.
• Demonstrate ability to drive innovation and a growth mindset culture within a business.
• Experience across multiple sectors and all stages of environmental and planning consultancy's project life.
• Demonstrable successful experience of directing major pursuits, with excellent commercial experience.
• Degree level qualification in town planning, Postgraduate qualification in a relevant subject.
• Full Membership of the RTPI

Why Become an Arcadian?

Our work with clients has a direct impact on people's lives and on the planet. We make moving, living and belonging in cities safer, more resilient and more sustainable. By partnering with our clients as responsible custodians of our earth's resources, we can create a sustainable planet.

We continue to think of new ways to make positive impacts and create better experiences for people; data driven and digital solutions have become part of the Arcadis DNA. Working together with clients and using techniques like design thinking, we can get to the heart of our clients' most pressing challenges and work together to solve them.

As a global business, we have committed to support five of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals to ensure that our projects contribute to a better and more sustainable future for all. But it's not just the work that we do on client projects that benefits communities and our planet. As a global business, we are committed to making a positive impact to society by supporting local communities where we operate.

To help protect our planet, we monitor and measure non-financial information to inform business decisions and reduce our own environmental impact as part of our commitment to be net zero carbon as a global company by 2030.

Our Commitment to Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging:

We want you to be able to bring your best self to work every day which is why we take equality and inclusion seriously and hold ourselves to account for our actions. Our ambition is to be an employer of choice and provide a great place to work for all our people. We believe that by working together diverse people with different experiences develop the most innovative ideas. Equality, diversity and inclusion is at the heart of how we improve quality of life and we work closely with our people across six ED&I Workstreams: Age, Disability, Faith, Gender, LGBT+ and Race. A diverse and skilled workforce is essential to our success.

Transform Your World