Nature Services Technical Director

Job Description

Mott MacDonald

We’re a global engineering, management, and development consultancy.
Our purpose is to improve society by considering social outcomes in everything we do, relentlessly focusing on excellence and digital innovation, transforming our clients’ businesses, our communities and employee opportunities.

A fundamental part of this is respecting each person’s differences and striving to meet their needs.

We are proud to be a one of Glassdoor’s top employers to work for in the UK, as well as being recognised as a Top Inclusive Company in the UK.

Our values: Progress, Respect, Integrity, Drive, Excellence.

About the division

Environmental and social considerations are central to Mott MacDonald’s Purpose and its offerings across all sectors and territories. Our environment and social business provides essential services and innovative solutions which anticipate our clients' needs across all sectors.

Overview of role

Position location: Flexible, UK

We are looking for an individual to provide strategic and technical leadership for our fast-growing Nature Services business. This individual will be highly experienced in leadership and business development, as well as managing teams working in multiple disciplines and have excellent technical skills in biodiversity and nature for infrastructure developments. This role will work with closely with our Technical Director of Nature Services and our Technical Principal of Nature-based Solutions, to develop and grow the strategic and integrated aspects of our Nature Services offering. This role will be involved with client engagement, proposal development and project delivery, as well as working with our wider Nature Services teams including the Natural Capital and Biodiversity Net Gain teams.

Core aspects of this role include:

• Developing and implementing our Nature Services offering from strategic advisory to embedding nature throughout the lifecycle of a development project
• Undertaking targeted client engagement to build client relationships and win work
• Providing technical input into tenders across the UK business and internationally
• Providing strategic and technical leadership on nature as part of project delivery
• Raising our profile as industry leaders

This role will also identify newly emerging Nature markets based on client needs, and the fast-emerging biodiversity policies and corporate disclosure frameworks within the UK and internationally, and develop our services where these align with our business plans. The role will also involve working with our multi-disciplinary technical teams, as well as our experts in business development, communications and marketing. A key part of this role is to raise the profile of our Nature Services team within our business and externally. This will involve publications, speaking at conferences and webinars and other such outlets, as being a member of key technical and professional working groups.

Nature is rising up corporate and political agendas. There are new regulations for developments to enhance nature and new disclosure frameworks for companies to report their impacts and dependencies on nature. Nature is now a significant business opportunity and targets such as nature positive and biodiversity net gain are increasingly being adopted by corporates, operational units and individual projects. We support private and public sector clients to enhance nature in ways that achieves their climate and social goals. With our Nature Services, we work with companies to develop and implement corporate strategies on nature, and we work with infrastructure development projects to embed nature throughout a project lifecycle. We adopt a Nature-based Solutions approach, making connections between nature and wider sustainability ambitions so our clients can achieve their nature, climate and social targets as one, interconnected goal.

Candidate specification

Essential:

• A highly competent professional with at least 15 years of experience in the Biodiversity / Nature / Sustainability sector within the infrastructure industry
• Highly experienced in leadership positions and in leading and collaborating with multi-disciplinary teams especially on complex development projects
• Highly experienced in business development and a thorough understanding of the UK Biodiversity / Nature consultancy market, with a strong client-orientated approach
• Excellent communication skills and proven experience in publications and presentations
• A degree in Biodiversity or Nature or a Sustainability related subject
• Full member of a professional institute

Desirable

• Experience in running professional training courses
• Access to a vehicle

We are actively recruiting a diverse workforce that is reflective of the communities we serve. We recognise that differences in ability, skills and experience are a strength and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds

Equality, diversity, and inclusion

We put equality, diversity, and inclusion at the heart of our business, seeking to promote fair employment procedures and practices to ensure equal opportunities for all. We encourage individual expression in our workplace and are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels they can contribute.

Accessibility

We want you to perform your best at every stage in the recruitment process. If you are disabled or need any support to enable you to apply or attend an interview, please contact us at reasonable.adjustments@mottmac.com and we will talk to you about how we can support you.

Agile working

Happy to talk Flexible Working and how we can support your responsibilities beyond the workplace.

We offer some fantastic benefits including:

Health and wellbeing

• Private medical insurance for all UK colleagues.
• Health cash plan to support you with every day health costs and treatments.
• Access to Peppy, providing free support from menopause experts for all UK colleagues.
• A variety of wellbeing support is available through our comprehensive wellbeing program, including access for you and your family.
• Ability to flex your salary to opt into a wide range of health benefits, many of which can be extended to your family too.

Financial wellbeing

• We match employee pension contributions between 4.5% and 7%.
• Life assurance equal up to 4 x your basic salary, with an option to increase the level of cover to 6 x your salary.
• Our income protection scheme provides a financial benefit, as well as absence and return to work support due to long-term illness or injury.
• Flexible benefits, including increased life assurance cover, critical illness insurance, payroll saving and will writing.
• As an independently owned business we share the financial success of the business with all our colleagues in various ways including annual bonus schemes.

Lifestyle

• A minimum of 33-35 days holiday each year, inclusive of public holidays and dependent on level, with the ability to buy or sell leave through our flexible benefits programme.
• Holiday entitlement increased to a minimum of 35 days after 5 years’ service.
• Variety of employee saving schemes and discounts from high-street retailers.

Enhanced family and carers leave

• Enhanced family leave policies, including 26 weeks paid maternity and adoption leave, and two weeks paid paternity/partner leave.
• Our shared parental leave matches maternity leave meaning we pay up to 24 weeks at full pay.
• Up to five additional days leave are provided for those with significant caring responsibilities, two of which are paid.

Learning and development

• Primary annual professional institution subscription.
• A broad range of opportunities to enhance both technical and soft skills through mentoring, formal training, and self-development options.

Networks, communities, and social outcomes

• Join a wide range of groups including our Advanced Employee Networks which support our LGBTQ+, gender, race and ethnicity, disability, and parents/carers communities.
• Make a difference within our communities through our social outcomes.

Apply now, or for more information about our application process, click here.

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