Balfour Beatty plc
Portfolio Director – Civil Engineering
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About The Role
Job Title: Portfolio Director – Civil Engineering
Location: East Midlands or West Midlands
Company: UK Construction Services, Regional Civils
About The Role
Balfour Beatty is looking for a Portfolio Director to provide strategic and operational leadership across a portfolio of regional civil engineering projects.
This opportunity could suit an established Portfolio Director or Project Director, or an accomplished Senior Project Manager who is ready to step up into a broader portfolio leadership role.
We are open on location across the East Midlands and West Midlands, with travel to projects, customers and key stakeholder locations as required.
A key requirement for this position is strong experience working with Local Authority clients. You will need to understand the Local Authority environment, how to build trusted client relationships and how to successfully develop and deliver infrastructure projects within this sector.
What you'll be doing
The opportunity
This is much more than a traditional project delivery role.
As Portfolio Director, you'll be involved across the full project lifecycle – from identifying opportunities, work winning and pre-construction through to operational delivery and handover. You'll work closely with the Area Director and wider leadership team to help develop a sustainable pipeline of work while ensuring projects are delivered safely, successfully and commercially.
You'll combine strong operational leadership with a commercial and customer-focused approach, helping shape projects before they reach site and maintaining long-term relationships that support repeat business.
Key Responsibilities
- Provide strategic and operational leadership across a portfolio of civil engineering projects.
- Develop and maintain strong relationships with Local Authorities and key public-sector customers.
- Play a proactive role in work winning, identifying opportunities and helping develop a sustainable pipeline of future work.
- Support pre-construction and bid activity, bringing operational expertise into delivery strategies, programmes, procurement and project planning.
- Lead project teams to achieve agreed safety, programme, cost, quality and commercial objectives.
- Maintain oversight of project financial performance, forecasts, operational risks and project P&L.
- Work collaboratively with Commercial, Pre-Construction, Estimating, Planning, Design and Business Development teams.
- Manage senior customer relationships throughout delivery, helping create opportunities for repeat and negotiated work.
- Drive operational excellence, innovation, sustainability and continuous improvement.
- Lead, coach and develop high-performing project teams and future leaders within the business.
Who we're looking for
Who We Are Looking For
We're particularly interested in speaking with individuals who have built their career within civil engineering and infrastructure.
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You may already be operating as a Portfolio Director or Project Director, or you could be a highly experienced Senior Project Manager ready to progress your career and take responsibility for a wider portfolio of projects and customers.
You'll Ideally Bring
- A strong civil engineering / infrastructure background.
- Significant experience working with Local Authority clients – essential.
- Experience gained within a Tier 1 or Tier 2 civil engineering contractor.
- A strong track record of leading complex civils projects and multidisciplinary teams.
- Experience across work winning, pre-construction and project delivery.
- Strong client relationship and stakeholder-management capability.
- Commercial awareness and an understanding of project P&L, forecasting, risk and performance.
- The ability to contribute to bids and influence project strategy before construction begins.
- Strong leadership skills with the ability to influence customers, senior stakeholders and delivery teams.
The role profile specifically seeks someone with operational leadership experience within regional civils, strong financial and commercial understanding, the ability to manage complex customer relationships and experience throughout the project lifecycle from work winning through to delivery and handover.
Ready for your next step?
For an established Portfolio Director, this is an opportunity to take a leading role within Balfour Beatty Regional Civils.
For a successful Senior Project Manager or Project Director, it could be the career move that allows you to step beyond the leadership of individual projects and begin influencing clients, work winning, pre-construction strategy and the performance of an entire portfolio.
If you have a strong civils background, know the Local Authority market and are ready for a broader leadership challenge, we'd love to hear from you.
Professional and personal development
The size and scale of Balfour Beatty coupled with our strong pipeline of work provides incredible opportunities, regardless of what stage you are at in your career.
We encourage and empower our employees to take control of their career and explore which part of the business they want to work in and what role is right for them. We actively encourage our managers and employees to have open communication throughout the year about wellbeing, development and career opportunities.
We're proud of the Balfour Beatty Academy. Whether it’s sharpening your technical expertise, improving your personal skills or seeking support to become professionally qualified, our 70:20:10* approach to development means we have a learning approach that suits everyone.
70% learning on the job, 20% learning from those around you, and 10% formal training courses and learning events.
For further information about Balfour Beatty please go to www.balfourbeatty.com/careers - You can also check out further job opportunities in the careers section
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Why work for us
Day in, day out, our teams deliver some of the UK’s most ambitious, exciting and meaningful projects; developing, building and maintaining the vital infrastructure that supports national economies and strengthens communities.
Why join us?
Benefits
As if contributing to and supporting work that makes life better for millions wasn’t rewarding enough, we offer a full range of benefits too. You’ll have the freedom to shape the package that’s right for you and your life. Here are some of our key benefits:
- Smart working, giving you more flexibility such as staggered start and finish times, with up to 40% remote working, where roles allow.
- 25 days paid annual leave (pro rata)
- Family friendly policies which include 28 weeks full pay for maternity/adoption leave and four weeks full pay for paternity/partners leave
- Pension, share incentive plan, volunteering leave, recognition schemes and much more…
About Us
With a strong track record of delivery, our civils teams connect communities through infrastructure projects in the highways, public realm, rail, flood and coastal defence, and industrial sectors across England and Wales.
Diversity and inclusion
At Balfour Beatty we believe that diversity and inclusion are essential components of any successful, happy workplace. Through our Value Everyone Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and Action Plan, we are growing our diverse workforce and developing our inclusive culture where everyone is able to thrive and reach their full potential, regardless of their identity or background. To find out how we are making this a reality, visit www.balfourbeatty.com/diversityandinclusion
To help and support us with our desired commitment to create an inclusive culture we are members of WISE, enei, Business Disability Forum and the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers (AFBE). In 2020, we signed the Audeliss and Involve Open Letter to demonstrate our commitment to taking key long term and sustainable actions on Black Inclusion. Balfour Beatty is also a Gold Award holder in the Ministry of Defence 'Employer Recognition Scheme' and actively encourage applications from Armed Forces personnel, veterans and reservists.
As a Disability Confident Employer, we are committed to working with people who have disabilities and long-term health conditions to remove barriers for them in obtaining employment. We are also committed to offering applicants with a disability an interview if they meet the minimum requirements for the role. For more info, visit: https://disabilityconfident.campaign.gov.uk/
We are looking to continually improve our resourcing process and ensure that it is fair and inclusive for all. If you have any feedback on the process, please share this with us at: candidaterecruitmentqueries@balfourbeatty.com
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