Capture Management Lead - Water in Cambridge

At AECOM, we're delivering a better world. Whether improving your commute, keeping the lights on, providing access to clean water, or transforming skylines, our work helps people and communities thrive. We are the world's trusted infrastructure consulting firm, partnering with clients to solve the world's most complex challenges and build legacies for future generations.

With unprecedented opportunity across the UK and Ireland Water industry, AECOM's Water business is seeking a Capture Management Lead to join the Water Strategy & Growth team. In this pivotal leadership role, you will be responsible for driving strategic growth and securing major enterprise-level critical pursuits (typically 25m + revenue) in the Water sector. This position requires visionary leadership, strategic thinking, and the ability to lead and take full ownership of capture & positioning strategies. Reporting to the Strategy & Growth Director for Water, the role will require developing and implementing winning capture and client positioning strategies, fostering collaboration across global and regional business lines, and ensuring operational excellence throughout the pursuit lifecycle. The role offers flexibility, with remote/virtual work options and travel as required.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and win enterprise critical pursuits (ECP / Tier 2) as the Capture Lead, owning the pursuit strategy from identification through to submission.
• Direct discovery, pre-positioning, differentiation, and delivery strategies for major transformative programmes including both new business opportunities and the renewal / extension of existing strategic opportunities within key accounts.
• Own pursuit governance, bid budgets, winning pursuit team composition and partnering / supply chain selection.
• Lead a holistic approach to capture strategy development, including client listening, win strategy, solution development, marcomms planning, bid planning & review through to debrief & lessons learnt.
• Establish and nurture client relationships to identifying bespoke needs, leveraging proactive engagement to inform and validate solutions.
• Analyse competitive landscapes, leveraging insights from recent wins and losses to refine strategies.
• Help to build and maintain a diversified pipeline of qualified opportunities, ensuring alignment with business strategy and goals.
• Collaborate with global and regional leaders to develop and execute growth plans aligned with AECOM's strategic priorities.
• Partner with Client Account Managers, Market Sector Leaders, and other business line representatives to leverage Our Client Promise in delivering capture outcomes that align with client expectations.

Team Collaboration & Mentorship:

• Partner with bid, marketing, technical, operations and commercial teams to prepare Capture Plans for complex proposals.
• Drive cultural change in approach to capture, facilitating the adoption of AECOM's positioning and pursuit playbooks and roll out of supportive training across Water.
• Facilitate pursuit strategy meetings and provide guidance and coaching for client engagement/positioning, presentation and interview teams.
• Promote a collaborative approach, leveraging multidisciplinary teams from across the region and globe to achieve success.
• Guide technical writers to develop dynamic and compelling content (all channels not just RFP), that is both compliant and compelling / persuasive.
• Ensure partnership between technical, marketing and bidding staff for proposal best practices.

Operational Excellence:

• Drive integrated strategies to improve capture and win rates and secure transformative programs.
• Champion the complete sales lifecycle aligned to best practice, including ensuring quality assurance and adherence to Green Light Analysis and Go/No-Go rigor.
• Coordinate with strategic marketing to plan and execute effective pursuit-based positioning campaigns that supports client positioning/engagement and elevated brand awareness.
• Ensure compliance with commercial, financial, legal, and governance elements of opportunities and contracts.
• Drive accountability for delivering sales metrics and achieving high capture/win rates.

Innovation & Impact:

• Position AECOM's innovative solutions, including sustainability & ESG, digitalisation, and equity-focused initiatives, to meet client transformation agendas.
• Leverage AECOM's Think & Act Global expertise and enterprise capabilities to deliver value-driven, client-focused outcomes.
• Harness potential of key growth enablers such as digital and technological innovations, including AI and autonomy, to provide competitive advantage in a rapidly changing world.

Influence & Relationship Management:

• Build trust with client decision-makers, delivery partners and internal stakeholders, including Client Account Managers, Market Sector Leaders, Regional Business Line Leaders, and Executive Boards.
• Innovative thinker, problem solver and willing to challenge teams to stretch beyond the norm.
• Demonstrate resilience and adaptability, ensuring focus remains on those opportunities which will deliver growth ambitions and provide greater value to our clients.

Qualifications:

• Degree level relevant qualification (preferable).
• Demonstrated leadership experience of critical pursuit capture strategy development and alignment with business targets and growth strategy within a consultancy environment.
• Proven track record of successfully leading strategic and complex pursuit strategies (Net Service Revenue above 25m) across multi-disciplinary and multi-locational teams, including working alongside clients, delivery partners and supply chain.
• Proven ability to deliver sales metrics and develop compelling client-centric value proposition.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate at all organisational levels - strong leadership skills with experience of building and managing large and diverse pursuit/capture teams.
• Relevant Water Industry experience together with working in a global matrix organisation (preferable).

We celebrate diversity, including neurodiversity, and believe it enriches our team. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and abilities. If you are an applicant with a disability that requires reasonable accommodation to complete the application process, please contact us at AECOM. We value everyone's unique contributions and perspectives. If you meet some of the requirements above or have transferable skills you believe would benefit us, we would be delighted to hear from you!

At AECOM, we are committed to maintaining a secure and trustworthy recruitment process and take any fraudulent hiring activity seriously. To support this commitment, all newly hired employees are required to attend an in-person Day 1 onboarding at an AECOM office location as a condition of employment.

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.

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.

AECOM provides a wide array of compensation, benefits and well-being programs to meet the diverse needs of our employees and their families. 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.