UK Social Value Delivery Lead in Edinburgh

Arup's purpose, shared values and collaborative approach has set us apart for 80 years, guiding how we shape a better world. We are an independent firm of designers, planners, engineers, consultants and technical specialists offering a broad range of professional services. Social value has become a critical part of public procurement and client decision-making. Organisations are expected not only to make strong commitments, but to deliver them credibly, measure them consistently, and show the difference they make.

In this role, you will help ensure our approach is commercially strong, operationally robust, and aligned with evolving UK procurement expectations, including the Social Value Act.

The Opportunity: We are looking for an experienced UK Social Value Delivery Leader to shape and lead our social value approach across the UK. This is a senior leadership role for someone who can turn ambition into delivery—building a clear regional strategy, strengthening work-winning, creating scalable programmes and partnerships, and improving how we measure and evidence impact.

You will lead a small central hub and work through a distributed network across the business, partnering with senior leaders, bid teams, project teams, and external partners. Success will depend on your ability to influence at senior level, create practical delivery models, and connect social value strategy to client outcomes, community benefit, and business performance by enabling the myriad of diverse projects in Arup to meet their social value commitments.

This is an opportunity to build a distinctive, high-impact social value capability in a major built environment and professional services context—one that improves bid quality, supports consistent delivery, and creates a credible evidence base for impact at project, geography, and UK level. This is a rare opportunity to shape a regional social value capability in a business with significant influence across the built environment. You will have the platform to work with senior leaders, support major pursuits and projects, and create an approach that is both commercially effective and genuinely impactful for communities.

If you are excited by building capability, influencing at senior level and turning social value commitments into credible delivery, we would love to hear from you.

At Arup, you belong to an extraordinary collective – in which we encourage individuality to thrive. Our strength comes from how we respect, share, and connect our diverse experiences, perspectives and ideas. You will have the opportunity to do socially useful work that has meaning – to Arup, to your career, to our members and to the clients and communities we serve.

Is this role right for you? We are looking for people with:

• University degree or preferably a master's degree or equivalent qualification in a relevant subject, such as sustainable development, economics, social sciences or planning.
• Senior experience leading social value, social impact, ESG or related programmes in a complex organisation.
• Strong understanding of UK public procurement and how social value is evaluated, delivered and reported through the procurement lifecycle.
• Experience shaping bids, influencing clients and working with senior stakeholders in a commercial environment.
• Experience designing practical frameworks, delivery models, measurement approaches and reporting processes.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with the ability to lead through influence across a distributed network.
• Experience in the built environment, infrastructure or professional services sector (Desirable).

What we offer you: At Arup, we care about each member's success, so we can grow together. Guided by our values, we provide an attractive total reward package that recognizes the contribution of each of our members to our shared success. As well as competitive, fair and equitable pay, we offer a career in which all of our members can belong, grow and thrive – through benefits that support health and wellbeing, a wide range of learning opportunities and many possibilities to have an impact through the work they do.

We are owned in trust on behalf of our members, giving us the freedom, with personal responsibility, to set our own direction and choose work that aligns with our purpose and adds to Arup's legacy. Our members collaborate on ambitious projects to deliver remarkable outcomes for our clients and communities. Profit Share is a key part of our reward, enabling members to share in the results of our collective efforts.

We also provide Private medical insurance, Life assurance, Accident insurance and Income protection cover. In addition, you'll have access to flexible benefits to help you look after all aspects of your wellbeing and give you the freedom and flexibility to find the best solutions for you, your family, and your individual needs.

Different People, Shared Values: Arup is an equal opportunity employer that actively promotes and nurtures a diverse and inclusive workforce. We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds, regardless of age (within legal limits), gender identity or expression, marital status, disability, neurotype or mental health, race or ethnicity, faith or belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, and whether you're pregnant or on family leave. We are an open environment that embraces diverse experiences, perspectives, and ideas – this drives our excellence.

Guided by our values and alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we create and contribute to equitable spaces and systems, while cultivating a sense of belonging for all. Our internal employee networks support our inclusive culture: from race, ethnicity and cross-cultural working to gender equity and LGBTQ+ and disability inclusion – we aim to create a space for you to express yourself and make a positive difference.

We are committed to making our recruitment process and workplaces accessible to all candidates. Please contact Karin Spies at karin.spies@arup.com to let us know if you need any assistance or reasonable adjustments throughout your application or interview process, and/or to perform the essential functions of the role. We will do everything we can to support you.