Business Development Director in London

Do you want to drive growth within an engineering consultancy? Can you collaborate with an international market team? Are you experienced in business development within power or transmission? Then join us to shape a sustainable and liveable world.

Create Solutions that will enable a better tomorrow. To support the growth of COWI's power and transmission business, we are looking for a Business Development Director to join us. Working across major opportunities in electricity transmission, grid infrastructure, substations, overhead lines, underground cables, interconnectors, offshore transmission and wider energy transition programmes, you’ll focus on COWI’s strategic market presence in the sector. The role will be centred on market leadership, client relationship development, bid leadership and commercial growth, strengthening COWI’s position as a trusted technical adviser and delivery partner within the energy infrastructure market.

The role requires a collaborative, externally focused leader who can connect client needs with COWI’s engineering, environmental, project management, and advisory capabilities. The chosen candidate will work across UK and international teams to bring COWI’s expertise to clients, develop a well-established business development culture, and support the growth of effective teams in the power and transmission sector.

Your key responsibilities will be:

• Develop and lead the business development strategy for power and transmission across target markets, clients, frameworks, and major programmes.
• Identify, qualify, and convert strategic opportunities in transmission, distribution, grid reinforcement, renewables integration, offshore transmission, and energy transition infrastructure.
• Build and maintain senior-level relationships with transmission owners, distribution network operators, developers, contractors, government bodies, regulators, and strategic partners.
• Manage capture planning, opportunity shaping, bid strategy, client engagement, and positioning for major pursuits.
• Work closely with technical directors, project directors, commercial teams, and regional leadership to align market demand with COWI’s technical capability and delivery capacity.
• Develop compelling value propositions that demonstrate COWI’s expertise in complex infrastructure, multidisciplinary engineering, sustainability, digital delivery, and programme-level advisory.
• Support bid governance, commercial reviews, risk assessment, pricing strategy, and contract positioning for key opportunities.
• Represent COWI at industry events, client forums, conferences, and strategic market engagements.
• Monitor market trends, competitor activity, policy developments, regulatory changes, and investment pipelines affecting power and transmission infrastructure.
• Contribute to business planning, revenue forecasting, pipeline reporting, and performance reviews.

Your skills. Our team. Together we design the future. Like us, you believe that leadership success comes from setting a clear and meaningful direction for your team and supporting them in taking ownership of their work. You always delegate responsibility and ensure an open and safe dialogue, and you coach your people to achieve their aspirations through constructive, fact-based feedback. Attracting and nurturing a diverse group of high-potential team members is at the top of your agenda, as is creating an inclusive, caring and trusting culture in your team.

On top of that, you’ll have:

• Relevant degree or professional qualification in engineering, energy, business, or a related discipline; chartered status or equivalent professional recognition.
• Business development, customer leadership, or market leadership experience within power, transmission, energy infrastructure, utilities, or major infrastructure consultancy.
• Good understanding of the UK power and transmission market, including grid investment drivers, regulatory frameworks, procurement routes, and major client organisations.
• Experience in securing and growing major consultancy, engineering, advisory, or design opportunities.
• Established senior relationships across utilities, developers, contractors, government agencies, or infrastructure clients.
• Commercially aware, with experience in pipeline management, bid strategy, contract negotiation, and profitable growth.
• Ability to translate complex technical capability into clear client value propositions and market-facing propositions.
• Solid communication, persuasion, presentation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience working across multidisciplinary and geographically distributed teams.

A place to work and so much more. At COWI, we work together with our customers to shape a sustainable and liveable world. We do it by applying our knowledge and curiosity – and sometimes even our courage – to create the solutions the world needs today to enable a better tomorrow. We support our customers’ transition towards increased sustainability. We strive to lead by example by embedding environmental management, social responsibility and good governance into our business practices and the options we provide to our customers.

We value differences and development and cultivate an environment of belonging and having fun. Because that is what brings out the best in you, at work and at home. With offices primarily located in the Nordic region, the UK, North America and India, we are currently more than 7,500 people who bring their expertise in engineering, architecture, energy and environment into play.

What we also offer: To us, a fair reward is more than a competitive salary. We want to take care of our people professionally and personally as well. Some of our benefits include:

• 28 days' holiday plus all UK bank and public holidays
• Formalised development plans and yearly promotion opportunities
• Private health care, for you and a contribution from you for your immediate dependents
• Flexible and hybrid working conditions
• Annual subscription fees paid for your membership of two Professional Institutions
• Group personal pension scheme – salary exchange
• Life assurance
• Maternity Leave: 1-20 weeks full pay, 21-26 weeks half pay, 27-39 Statutory (SMP) 40-52 weeks unpaid (eligibility criteria will apply)
• Paternity Leave: 12 weeks full pay (eligibility criteria will apply)

Optional benefits include:

• Cycle-to-work scheme
• Electric vehicle lease
• Corporate gym membership
• Annual Rail card (available for under 30s)

If you have any unanswered questions about the role or what we have to offer, please reach out to Ciaran Gilfedder at cigi@COWI.COM. Get to know us even better at our website, www.cowi.com, where you can learn more about our projects, our strategy, what we want to achieve and what life is like at COWI.

COWI provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to ethnicity, colour, religion, gender, national origin, age or disability. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.