Advisory Senior Director - Defence

Job Description

AECOM Advisory is our new management consulting Global Business Line. Created to build on AECOM’s considerable operational expertise in infrastructure design and engineering services, AECOM Advisory is a trusted adviser to senior level clients and executive teams on their most pressing enterprise and strategic needs.

We serve the full value chain of clients active in infrastructure and the built environment, including: central and local government, defence, energy, investors, transportation and water. Our UK team of 100 staff comprises business analysts, economists, commercial strategists, major programme advisors and change management practitioners. We help our clients develop their strategy, set-up major programmes for successful delivery and improve their operational performance, to generate value for their stakeholders and impact for their communities.

We are a new category of consulting firm; one that builds off true operational and technical expertise of our broader platform to bring industry depth and capability-driven insight to the clients we serve.

We are seeking talented leaders to join AECOM Advisory who are mission-driven for the role of our clients. We are recruiting for this role which can be based anywhere in the UK.

You will join as a leader in a fast-paced and supportive team of diverse consulting professionals. We pride ourselves on our strong culture of collaborative problem-solving, our mission of addressing our client’s most complex and impactful problems, and paired with career pathways that nurtures professional development and personal growth.

Start here. Grow here.

As a Senior Director in AECOM Advisory’s UK business, your day-to-day role will include driving business development, overseeing engagement delivery and leading practice development for the defence sector. This is a seller-doer role, and these tasks will include, but not be limited to:

• Driving industry conversations and engaging professional networks to identify and originate business development opportunities.
• Leveraging industry expertise and commercial acumen to proactively target, define and shape business development campaigns
• Oversee all aspects of business development, for both engagements and broader campaigns, including: client outreach, proposal development, solutions architecture, commercial and pricing strategy, internal risk review, and compliance procedures.
  • Oversee (lead, supervise, and provide quality control over) multiple parallel delivery teams, across various delivery models, tempos and engagement scopes.
  • Provide leadership for client interactions on delivery progress and insight validation, and visibility for interactions including with C-suite clients and senior management stakeholders.
  • Upwardly and laterally manage the inputs from peers and technical experts to flag key delivery choices, considerations and risks as they relate to technical scope, client satisfaction, and commercial constraints.
  • Architect analytical workstreams and strategically guide engagement teams.
  • Provide timely quality assurance and control over scope, assumptions, analyses and insights.
  • Oversee narrative formulation and highly-polished deliverable production to meet client expectations and firm standards.
• Drive practice development with conducting performance appraisals, FP&A, operational performance improvement, thought leadership and IP generation.
• Proactively coach and mentor staff.

If you're passionate about innovation and turning bold ideas into reality, AECOM welcomes you. Join our team, where we don't just construct infrastructure but also uplift communities and enhance lives. Why not give our AECOM page on LinkedIn a follow to stay updated on the impactful projects we're working on and see firsthand the difference we're making in the industry!

Qualifications

Ready to push the limits of what’s possible?

Here’s what we’re looking for:

• Proven track record in a seller-doer role in a management consulting firm.
• At least 10 years of management consulting and/or related industry experience.
• Bachelor’s degree.
• Deep understanding of the defence sector and an exception network. Track record of work winning with either MOD or OEM clients.
• Exceptional interpersonal skills, client-service mindset and ability to act as a trusted adviser to clients.
• Create a culture of a high-tempo, high-context client-facing environment, with the ability to maintain poise, maturity and work well under pressure.
• Able to be self-directed, anticipatory and a collegial team-player who can work across a devolved-leadership and highly-matrixed consulting organization.
• Exceptional verbal communication and narrative development skills, with the ability to summarize and convey key insights to C-suite and senior management audiences.
• Exceptional commercial acumen and willingness to have an informed point-of-view, grounded in an interest in enterprise challenges (people, process, technology) and expert understanding of client industries and their context.
• Domain expertise across multiple of the following areas:

  • Corporate or enterprise strategy, market analysis and target operating model design.

  • Organisational assessment, business transformation and performance improvement.

  • Corporate finance, valuations, M&A, divestitures, divestments and privatisations.

  • Capital projects advisory, including project finance and/or infrastructure investment appraisal, capital improvement planning, asset management, portfolio strategy.

  • Economic development, industrial policy and market transformation.

Additional Information

About AECOM

AECOM is the world’s trusted infrastructure consulting firm, delivering professional services throughout the project lifecycle – from advisory, planning, design and engineering to program and construction management. On projects spanning transportation, buildings, water, new energy and the environment, our public- and private-sector clients trust us to solve their most complex challenges. Our teams are driven by a common purpose to deliver a better world through our unrivaled technical and digital expertise, a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion, and a commitment to environmental, social and governance priorities. AECOM is a Fortune 500 firm and its Professional Services business had revenue of $16.1 billion in fiscal year 2025. See how we are delivering sustainable legacies for generations to come at aecom.com and @AECOM.

Freedom to Grow in a World of Opportunity 

You will have the flexibility you need to do your best work with hybrid work options. Whether you’re working from an AECOM office, remote location or at a client site, you will be working in a dynamic environment where your integrity, entrepreneurial spirit and pioneering mindset are championed.

You will help us foster a safe and respectful workplace, where we invite everyone to bring their whole selves to work using their unique talents, backgrounds and expertise to create transformational outcomes for our clients.

AECOM provides a wide array of compensation, benefits and well-being programs to meet the diverse needs of our employees and their families. We’re the world’s trusted global infrastructure firm, and we’re in this together – your growth and success are ours too.

Join us, and you’ll get all the benefits of being a part of a global, publicly traded firm – access to industry-leading technology and thinking and transformational work with big impact and work flexibility. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person’s potential, and we’ll help you reach yours.

We are a Disability Confident Employer and will offer an interview to applicants who have a disability or long-term condition, who meet the minimum/essential criteria for the role. Please let us know using this email address [email protected]  if you would like to apply through the Disability Confident Interview Scheme.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.