Business Director - Design & Engineering (Water) in Exeter

Arcadis is the world’s leading company delivering sustainable design, engineering, and consultancy solutions for natural and built assets. We are more than 36,000 people, in over 70 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.

As investment across the water sector accelerates, we are appointing a senior Business Director to strengthen our UK Water leadership team, with full accountability for commercial outcomes, client engagement, and successful execution of major capital schemes. This role partners closely with leading UK and international contractors on nationally significant infrastructure projects, providing substantial influence and the chance to lead in a rapidly evolving sector. This role will lead the business unit with full P&L accountability, driving disciplined delivery to protect margins and enable profitable, sustainable growth. It will set and execute clear strategic plans, build and maintain strong client relationships, and align cross‑functional teams to the business strategy.

We work to protect our natural environment and water resources, while powering our world for future generations. Around the world, we’re feeling the effects of climate change, rapid urbanization, loss of biodiversity. The rate at which we’re seeing large‑scale, unforeseen events such as floods and wildfires is becoming more frequent.

Role accountabilities

• Take full ownership of the business unit’s P&L, driving revenue growth, margin protection, cost control, utilisation, cash flow, and accurate forecasting with proactive corrective actions.
• Lead, motivate, and develop a senior team, setting clear objectives and fostering a high‑performance culture aligned to business goals.
• Develop and deliver the business plan, ensuring the team understands their role in achieving targets.
• Identify and pursue profitable client opportunities, ensuring robust pricing, resourcing, and margin protection.
• Build and maintain strong client relationships to drive satisfaction, retention, and sustainable growth.
• Coach project leaders to enforce strong governance and effective delivery that manage risk and safeguard margins.
• Spot and nurture talent in both technical and commercial functions, promoting career development through targeted programmes.
• Collaborate with service leads to optimise resource allocation, improving utilisation and profitability.
• Oversee risk management and compliance to protect commercial outcomes and the business reputation.
• Maintain deep market and client insight to inform strategy, growth priorities, and investment decisions.
• Champion cross‑functional collaboration to unlock cross‑sell and trade‑up opportunities aligned to growth and margin targets.

Qualifications & Experience

Essential

• Mature and demonstrable experience in the water sector, with demonstrable exposure to regulated water environments and/or major capital programmes.
• Degree‑qualified in a relevant engineering, technical, or professional discipline (e.g. Civil, Mechanical, Environmental Engineering, Project or Programme Management, Construction Management).
• Proven experience in a senior leadership role with accountability for P&L performance, including revenue growth, margin management, cost control, and resource utilisation.
• Strong track record of leading complex, multi‑disciplinary teams and delivering large‑scale programmes or portfolios in a consultancy, delivery, or client‑side environment.
• Demonstrable experience of client leadership, including developing senior client relationships, securing repeat work, and delivering profitable growth.
• Experience operating in matrixed organisations, with the ability to work across business lines and actively drive cross‑sell and trade‑up opportunities.
• Strong commercial and operational judgement, with the ability to balance delivery, risk, and financial performance in high‑pressure environments.

Desirable

• Chartered status (e.g. CEng, MAPM, MCIOB or equivalent) or working towards chartership.
• Experience working with Tier 1 contractors, joint ventures, or international delivery partners.
• Exposure to major infrastructure programmes (£100m+), long‑term frameworks, or regulated capital investment cycles.
• Formal training or qualifications in commercial management, leadership, or business management (e.g. MBA, executive leadership programmes).
• Experience contributing to or leading business transformation, operating model change, or performance improvement initiatives.

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 maximise 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.