Defence Sector Operations Manager in London

Company Description

Work with Us. Change the World. 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.

There has never been a better time to be at AECOM. With accelerating infrastructure investment worldwide, our services are in great demand. We invite you to bring your bold ideas and big dreams and become part of a global team of over 50,000 planners, designers, engineers, scientists, digital innovators, program and construction managers and other professionals delivering projects that create a positive and tangible impact around the world.

We're one global team driven by our common purpose to deliver a better world. Join us.

Job Description

Start here. Grow here. The Defence Sector Operations Lead is responsible for ensuring operational excellence across Defence programmes, frameworks, and sector processes. This role requires a strong understanding of Defence frameworks and compliance requirements, enabling the individual to anticipate issues, resolve problems, and improve processes. Operating with a high degree of autonomy, the Operations Lead handles unplanned issues, makes informed judgement calls, and implements solutions. As a key point of contact across sectors, the Operations Lead influences process improvements and provides guidance to colleagues and new starters.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

• Meetings & Governance: Manage the governance cadence end-to-end, including scheduling, agendas, papers, and outcomes. Record and track actions to closure, ensuring progress and escalating delivery risks where necessary. Diagnose inefficiencies in meeting structures and governance processes; design and implement improvements.
• Reporting & Data: Maintain the accuracy and integrity of sector trackers and registers, detecting and resolving data issues at source. Build and interpret reports and dashboards (Salesforce, Power BI, Excel), drawing out trends, risks, and insights to inform leadership decisions. Standardise and evolve reporting methodologies and templates to improve consistency and decision quality.
• Systems & Framework Compliance: Maintain the Defence SharePoint site as the authoritative knowledge base, setting standards, enforcing version control, and conducting quality audits. Lead framework compliance processes by interpreting requirements, preparing evidence, and pre-empting gaps. Exercise judgement in ambiguous compliance situations, escalating only novel or high-risk issues.
• Event & Sector Activity: Support MARCOMS colleagues in planning and delivering Defence sector events and campaigns, assisting with timelines, budgets, and stakeholder inputs. Support MARCOMS colleagues in the development of case studies and external collateral, working with delivery and bid teams to capture and shape content.
• Cross-Sector Collaboration: Represent Defence in cross-sector forums, advocating for process changes and enhancements that are supported by evidence and securing buy-in. Handle sensitive commercial and compliance information with discretion, setting clear boundaries on what can be shared and with whom. Track adoption of agreed process improvements and remove barriers to implementation.
• People Development: Coach colleagues and new starters on systems, frameworks, and processes; provide on-the-job training and practical guidance as required to ensure consistency and compliance. Act as a point of escalation and technical reference for coordinators/administrators in Defence and adjacent sectors.
• Sector Management: Coordinate onboarding for new joiners to the Defence sector, including induction arrangements and system access requests. Maintain the sector risk, issue, and opportunity log, driving mitigations and reporting trends to leadership. Support internal and client audit readiness, including evidence collation, pre-audit checks, and response actions to findings. Maintain and evolve the SharePoint architecture, curating lessons learned and building reusable templates/playbooks.

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.

Enjoy the Perks. At AECOM, you'll enjoy a range of core and personalised benefits designed to support your future and well-being, customised to fit your lifestyle. Take advantage of career development opportunities, our flexible hybrid working model to ensure a work-life balance that suits your lifestyle, technical practice networks, AECOM University, and volunteering days.

Qualifications

Ready to push the limits of what’s possible? Here’s what we’re looking for:

• Significant experience in operations or PMO roles within Defence, engineering, construction, or consulting, with clear ownership of outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to make judgement calls in ambiguous situations and to design and implement process improvements.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, including persuading cross-sector colleagues to adopt improved processes.
• Advanced proficiency with Excel, Power BI, and Salesforce (or equivalents), including building dashboards and deriving insights.
• Experience coaching peers or new starters and creating practical guidance (e.g., playbooks, SOPs, training).

Preferred Qualifications

• Relevant degree or professional qualification in operations, project management, or a related discipline.
• Experience within Defence or defence-adjacent environments and familiarity with UK Government frameworks.
• Strong working knowledge of SharePoint governance and information management.

Important Information

UK Security Clearance required or willingness to apply (company will support the process). Hybrid working with occasional travel for meetings and events. Commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion; reasonable accommodations available.

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!

Additional Information

Interested in the role or curious about life at AECOM? Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to explore our AECOM voices, employee stories, latest projects, and much more!

For further information about the role, reach out to the recruiter on LinkedIn. 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.

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.