Legal Counsel or Senior Legal Counsel

Uber Boat by Thames Clippers is London’s leading river boat service, currently operating a fleet of around 25 purpose-built high-speed vessels, supported by an extensive pier network, homeport and dry-dock facilities. We were founded in 1999, and have a strong record of organic growth through route and fleet expansion, with more recent M&A activity adding to that growth. We employ over 500 colleagues across a range of marine, operational and central-support functions, and served around 6m customers in 2025. We are currently majority owned by Northleaf Capital Partners, a global private markets investment firm, who acquired their interest in our business in early-2022.

THE ROLE

We are seeking a UK-qualified solicitor or chartered legal executive to join the legal team as Legal Counsel or Senior Legal Counsel (dependent on experience), reporting to the General Counsel and Group Company Secretary. This role will be part of a small but experienced and agile team that support legal, non-marine compliance and company secretarial work across our group, and who collectively work under the supervision and with the support of the General Counsel and Group Company Secretary, who founded the team and joined the business in 2022. This commercially focussed role will work in close collaboration with our internal customers across the business, including procurement, sales, marketing and communications, IT, engineering and people, and will provide strong autonomy and growth potential for the successful candidate. There will also be the opportunity to be involved in corporate, M&A, finance and transactional work at an exciting time for our business.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

• Junior to mid-level UK-qualified solicitor or chartered legal executive (as a guide, likely c. 2-5 PQE, although candidates from outside that range are welcome to apply if they can demonstrate the appropriate skills and experience, or if they have an alternative career path background), either as a first move in-house from private practice, or as a lateral move from a current in-house role for a candidate looking to experience a depth and range of work in an innovative and fast-growing operational business.
• A strong technical background in commercial contracting is essential, including providing legal support to procurement, sales and marketing, and partnership-related projects, as well as supporting growth project delivery work.
• This is a broad role and will focus on our contracting requirements across a range of areas, but also provide the opportunity to be involved in more strategic projects.
• Interest in and experience of legal technology and operations is desirable but not essential.
• Experience in property and construction work is desirable but not essential, and the successful candidate will have the opportunity to develop their skills in this area, as well as gaining exposure to corporate, finance and governance work to develop their broader skills, and well as employment law.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Support the business across a wide range of legal work and use strong legal research, analysis and drafting skills to help the business achieve its commercial objectives, with a balanced and proportionate approach to the acceptance of legal risk, with guidance from more senior colleagues where required.
• Work closely with our procurement function to support our commercial contracting agenda, with counterparties like vessel and equipment suppliers, and IT and marine operational teams, as well as our sales, marketing and commercial partnerships teams.
• Providing legal support on our commercial and growth project pipeline.
• Depending on experience and aspirations, involvement in data protection, privacy and more complex IT work, as well as the opportunity to gain exposure to corporate, finance and governance work.
• Undertake legal research as required (across a broad range of practice areas), maintain a knowledge of developing areas of law and industry best practice, and provide updates to the team and business as appropriate.
• You will be encouraged to develop your own professional network and attend industry and legal conferences and events as appropriate.
• Support with the development of precedent documentation and legal processes for more regularly occurring legal work, and suggest opportunities for process improvement where appropriate, including supporting the General Counsel and Group Company Secretary on the procurement and implementation of legal technology.

BEHAVIOURAL COMPETENCIES

• As a business and as a legal team, we value excellence, people with drive, passion and purpose, people who show and so deserve to receive respect from their colleagues, and people who are reliable, and can be trusted to do the right thing.
• For this role, flexibility, diligence, agility and clarity of thought are more important than any particular legal background, although a strong knowledge of English contract law, excellent drafting skills and the ability to balance a clear understanding of risk with commercial pragmatism is key.
• The successful candidate will be supportive, collegiate, engaged, talented and authentic.
• The successful candidate will be able to communicate effectively (both in writing and orally), will be organised and reliable, and diligent, proactive and collaborative.

LOCATION & TRAVEL

Our head offices are located in East London at Trinity Buoy Wharf, across the River Thames from The O2 (nearest public transport: Canning Town (Jubilee) or East India (DLR)), which is also the homeport for the vast majority of our fleet. We operate a cross-river staff ferry connecting TBW to the Greenwich Peninsula, for The O2 and North Greenwich (Jubilee). The legal team is supportive of flexible working / hybrid arrangements, and recognize that modern lawyers have other things that they want or need to include in their lives, and the candidate will be trusted to manage their time accordingly. We also believe in personal development and professional growth, and the team is committed to investing in our people to achieve that.

This role is initially available on long-term fixed contract basis to the end of 2027 (with strong potential for the role to be made permanent thereafter), and is offered on a full-time basis, albeit we welcome applications from candidates seeking a four-day working week or other flexible working/hybrid arrangements, and specific requests can be discussed at interview stage.