Residential Development Legal Director or Senior Associate in Guildford

This is a multi‑faceted position in which you will work alongside some of the biggest names within house building as well as niche developers. Your responsibilities will be varied but will include:

• Complex and large‑scale land acquisitions from household names across England and Wales
• Collaboration agreements between developers
• Disposals of services parcels
• Funding arrangements
• Strategic options
• Urban regeneration

Our Residential Development Unit exclusively partners with housebuilders. We work with all of the top 10 housebuilders in the UK and 18 of the top 20. With 200 specialists, we have the largest residential development team in the UK offering a complete acquisition to disposal service. The team acts for national and regional housebuilders, promoters and institutional landowners on new residential developments of up to 6,500 new homes. Our Land Team acts on large‑scale development matters such as development agreements, conditional contracts, options, corporate and contractual joint venture and collaboration agreements. We also assist our housebuilder clients with strategic land projects. You’ll be able to rely on the UK’s largest plot team so that your focus is solely on land acquisition work. The team is supported by specialist Litigation, Planning and Construction teams to offer a full service to your clients. This is a brilliant opportunity to learn from their experience and develop your career within this market‑leading team.

We seek a Legal Director or Senior Associate with a minimum of 5 years of post‑qualification experience. The successful candidate will have experience working with housebuilders and have helped to mentor junior members of a team. Most importantly, you will share our passion in delivering the best service possible to residential developers.

Key Attributes

• Passion and Commitment: We value individuals who are deeply passionate about land acquisition – a cornerstone of Gateley’s strategic vision.
• Growth Potential: Our track record speaks for itself – we nurture and elevate our Land Acquisition experts to Partnership positions.
• Investment in the Future: We actively seek candidates whom we can invest in for long‑term success.

With support, coaching and feedback from some of the most engaging colleagues around, our great development and progression opportunities will reward your commitment and loyalty. We offer a competitive remuneration package where you’ll be rewarded for your individual performance with an opportunity to receive an annual bonus. In addition, we have a wide range of learning and development opportunities via our Learn platform to develop new skills and progress your career. Our My Flex comprehensive rewards package includes options covering annual leave (and the benefit of purchasing extra days), cycle to work, critical illness benefit, employee assistance programme, group personal pension, health care, season ticket loan and many more benefits (grade dependent). Finally, with Perks At Work/Home you can select a host of retail benefits that suit your needs alongside a Community Online Academy, free courses for all from fitness to coding to languages to hip‑hop dance.

Diversity, Inclusion and Well‑Being

Diversity, inclusion and well‑being is an important part of Gateley’s culture and values. We recruit talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, providing equal opportunities for all to join our team regardless of age, sex, race, sexual orientation, disability or culture. We create an exciting and rewarding place to work that aims to fulfil everyone's potential and together to achieve personal and business goals. We offer flexible working patterns to help our staff achieve a good work/life balance and we encourage candidates seeking flexibility in their next role to apply for any of our vacancies. We are proud to have been recognised by The Law Society as gold standard for our Diversity and Inclusion Charter and to be Stonewall Diversity Champions.

Gateley

We are forward thinking and straight talking, our approach is to find solutions to the problems that our clients face. Gateley is a legal and professional services group, we are a group of formidable experts in all areas of law and business. Passionate problem solvers, we get our kicks from finding the right answers and getting our legal and business clients where they need to be. We support more than 5,700 active clients, ranging from FTSE 100 companies to private individuals, in the UK and beyond. Being part of Gateley is not just about the expertise that you bring; it’s about attitude too. The 'Gateley Story' is the story of our people and our culture. It is what has got us to where we are today as a successful business and it’s the driving force behind the Gateley Team Spirit and the values that have shaped it. We have a set of shared internal values that capture what the Gateley Team Spirit is and this includes five elements that bind us all together as one Gateley: Ambitious for Success, Forward Thinking, Room to Breathe, Trusted to Do and Working Together. Every year across the group, we recognise members of our team that have gone above and beyond and have lived these shared values. They are recognised at our annual Gateley Team Spirit awards.

Additional Information

If you are successful in receiving an offer of a role with our company, a variety of pre‑employment screening checks will be completed. Our screening checks can include but are not limited to your eligibility to work, professional and academic qualifications, any criminal records, your financial stability and references from previous employers. The screening that takes place will be relevant to your role and will vary from role to role.