Arcadis
Senior Project Director - Data Centres (Site Based)
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Arcadis
Arcadis is the world's leading company delivering sustainable design, engineering, and consultancy solutions for natural and built assets.
We are more than 34,000 people, in over 30 countries, dedicated to improving quality of life. Everyone has an important role to play. With the power of many curious minds, together we can solve the world’s most complex challenges and deliver more impact together.
Project Overview
This role supports a major £10 billion hyperscale data centre campus in Northumberland, North East England—one of the largest data centre developments in Europe. The project spans 540,000 sqm across 10 data centre buildings and includes extensive enabling works, substation construction, and environmental remediation. First-phase enabling works commenced in late 2025, with main construction beginning in 2026. The development will create thousands of jobs and represent a transformative investment in the region.
Role Overview
The Senior Project Director provides strategic leadership and single-point accountability for the Project Management Consultancy service across the campus programme.
The role leads governance, assurance, stakeholder management, team leadership, risk, change, reporting, and delivery oversight across data centres, enabling works, substations, and Owner-Furnished Contractor-Installed (OFCI) packages.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the Arcadis Project Management Consultancy team across RIBA Stages 3, 4 and 5.
- Act as the single point of accountability to the client’s construction leadership for project management delivery.
- Set and govern project-wide processes, systems, and policies including PEP, RACI, governance, IMS, risk, change, cost, EHS, quality, commissioning, procurement, and handover.
- Lead and mentor the Project Management team and direct reports across multiple data centre workstreams.
- Lead strategic engagement with senior client stakeholders and external stakeholders including statutory authorities, utilities, network providers, and delivery partners.
- Champion project culture, transparency, accountability, lessons learned, and continuous improvement.
- Govern stage gate, procurement, change, risk, quality, commissioning, and handover processes.
Key Interfaces
- Client construction leadership and senior leadership team.
- CSA PM, MEPH PM, EHS Manager, Scheduler, FIDIC Engineer, Project Support, and wider PM team.
- General Contractors, Enabling Works Contractor, Substation EPC Contractor, and OFCI vendors.
- Design consultants, planning consultants, cost and commercial teams, principal designer / BRPD, and environmental consultants.
- Statutory and third-party stakeholders including planning authorities, the Environment Agency, Network Rail, National Grid, utilities, and water authorities.
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Experience & Skills Required
- Substantial experience leading major or complex construction programmes, preferably hyperscale data centres or mission-critical infrastructure.
- Strong working knowledge of RIBA Stages 3–5, project governance, reporting, and stage gate control.
- FIDIC Red Book and major project commercial awareness.
- Experience leading multi-disciplinary project teams and senior client stakeholder relationships.
- Strong understanding of risk, change, schedule, quality, EHS, procurement, commissioning, and handover governance.
Key Behaviours
- Strategic leader and trusted advisor.
- Calm under pressure and decisive.
- Clear communicator with strong governance discipline.
- Collaborative, transparent, and proactive in approach.
- Safety-first and quality-led mindset.
What This Role Is Not
- Not a day-to-day construction manager or trade contractor lead.
- Not responsible for contractor means and methods.
- Not the designer, Engineer of Record, Cost Consultant, Scheduler, EHS Manager, or FIDIC Engineer.
- Not responsible for routine administration where this sits with Project Support or workstream PMs.
Daily / Weekly / Monthly Deliverables
Daily
- Review critical-path schedule status and risks / blockers raised by CSA and MEPH Project Managers.
- Hold a leadership stand-up with direct reports to align on critical-path actions, blockers, and escalations.
- Review / approve FIDIC Engineer’s Instructions, formal correspondence, and time-critical change, EOT, or defect notices where required.
- Remain available for the client construction leadership team and senior stakeholder calls.
- Review EHS observation cards, near misses, and H&S incidents and escalate where required.
- Monitor ACC workflow approvals requiring Senior Project Director approval.
- Liaise with the Arcadis Lead Consultant on cross-discipline alignment, dependencies, and decisions.
Weekly
- Attend a site walk with the EHS Lead and Principal Contractor as required.
- Attend Weekly Change Meeting, Planning Update Call, design workshops, and project team meetings.
- Attend Last Planner meetings with General Contractors working on the campus.
- Lead Dashboard Review with the client construction team.
- Issue / approve the Weekly Status Dashboard to the client’s construction lead.
- Hold weekly 1:1s with CSA and MEPH PM direct reports.
- Review Risk & Opportunity Register movements, IMS drop-line, slippage analysis, Change Log, and RFI Log status.
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Monthly
- Lead and participate in monthly safety moments.
- Chair the Monthly Progress Meeting with client, consultants, and contractors.
- Lead monthly risk review workshops at project and programme level.
- Issue the Monthly Executive Summary to the client’s construction lead.
- Attend / lead monthly H&S performance review with the H&S Manager and Principal Contractor.
- Review Quality KPIs, NCRs, and ACC workflow analytics.
- Review direct report performance and resource forecast versus demand.
- Support quarterly strategic risk review workshops with the client as required.
Why Arcadis?
We can only achieve our goals when everyone is empowered to be their best. We believe everyone's contribution matters. It’s why we are pioneering a skills-based approach, where you can harness your unique experience and expertise to carve your career path and maximize the impact we can make together.
You’ll do meaningful work, and no matter what role, you’ll be helping to deliver sustainable solutions for a more prosperous planet. Make your mark, on your career, your colleagues, your clients, your life and the world around you.
Together, we can create a lasting legacy.
Join Arcadis. Create a Legacy.
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.
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