Job Description

Overview

As we accelerate the 2030 UKI Growth Plan, our Planning, Environmental Consenting & Communities (PECC) Practice will play a critical role in enabling sustainable infrastructure delivery and driving this growth across AtkinsRéalis. We are seeking a Practice Manager for the Northern region to lead a high‑performing multidisciplinary team and work with the Practice Director to deliver the Environment Strategy across GTC, Digital, Strategic Partners, and Talent & Resourcing.

This leadership role has direct accountability for driving regional growth, strengthening market presence, and ensuring consistently high‑quality outcomes, whilst developing the best talent in the industry. The successful candidate will combine strong commercial acumen with inspiring people leadership to optimise resources, deepen strategic relationships, and enhance technical excellence across the practice.

The Practice Manager will lead the Northern Practice (circa 70 colleagues), spanning Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, York, Derby and Birmingham, overseeing planning, environmental assessment, stakeholder engagement, and social value teams. You will play a key role in collaborating with Line Managers, Practice Managers and Technical Directors in PECC and across AtkinsRéalis, responding to increasing project demand while shaping new and more efficient ways of working.

This role offers significant exposure to complex, high‑profile projects and the opportunity to influence both operational performance and future capability. You will drive delivery excellence, develop talent, and ensure the practice is positioned to meet evolving client and market needs.

As a practice manager, you must excel as a technical leader in Town Planning, Major Infrastructure Consenting, Environmental Assessment, EIA, Social Value or Stakeholder Engagement. You will be responsible for liaising with clients and guiding teams on large-scale infrastructure projects, ensuring effective delivery within your area of expertise. Additionally, your experience and knowledge should help support our goal to expand market share.

Working closely with the Southern Practice Manager and reporting to the PECC Practice Director, you will partner with market and business development teams to strengthen client relationships and secure sustainable growth.

Your role

• Enthuse our people through effective performance and development plans that align to their career preferences and organisation goals.
• Build and maintain productivity within the team through efficient resource management whilst facilitating the flow of work to the Global Technology Centre.
• Liaise with the other Regional Practice Managers to ensure we have sufficient resources with the right skills to develop our current and future market strategies.
• Support the technical development of staff within the team and be accountable for technical assurance of deliverables.
• Support practice wide and business initiatives and innovations such as ED&I, wellbeing, digital and others.
• Be close to the practice’s clients, delivering technical outcomes and helping to unlock future opportunities.

About you

• Strong team leadership skills with the ability to lead through others.
• Ability to effectively communicate across all levels with both clients and internal stakeholders, building effective relationships and quickly establishing credibility.
• Demonstrates collaborative behaviours, interfacing with multi-disciplinary teams, market teams, and other stakeholders.
• Strong interpersonal and conflict resolution skills.
• A good understanding of business operations and levers available to maximise performance.
• Deliver excellence to our clients through technical delivery, whilst leading project teams to success.
• Provide line management for local team leaders, be accountable for career and talent development and manage employee performance.
• Support technical best practice, knowledge sharing and process standardisation/ optimisation across the practice.
• Establish resource demand based on the pipeline of opportunities in collaboration with multi-discipline divisional resource managers.
• Manage practice performance with focus on meeting or exceeding targets.
• Ensure team member skills and capacity meet the needs of the markets through targeted recruitment and focused staff development.
• Accountable for winning work through maximising additional/repeat/follow-on work from clients.
• Help drive innovation in service offerings.
• Identify opportunities and foster client relationships.
• Ensure that business activity conforms to the Business Management Systems and does not present an unacceptable risk.
• Support and lead strategic bids, both for PECC and within other discipline groups.
• Be responsible for recruitment within the region and team succession planning.
• Be responsible for QSSE leadership in the region.
• Motivational – to build and motivate a team and demonstrate good leadership qualities.
• A high expectation of performance – both for themselves and other members of the team, coupled with a drive for continuous improvement.
• Excellent communication – both interpersonal and organisational skills, verbally and in writing.
• Approachable – to be supportive and encouraging to all members of the team, coupled with a passion for staff development.
• Professional – to lead the practice team so that it has a reputation for technical excellence and quality of delivery in a relevant discipline.
• Flexible – be able to travel throughout the UK where required, while maintaining a beneficial balance.
• Hard working – someone who is reliable, proactive and innovative, whilst able to keep calm under pressure and when working to often demanding deadlines.
• Adaptive –able to adapt to different cultures and working environments to build rapport with both clients and practice teams.
• Growth Mindset- enthusiastically and positively provide ideas about how we can grow commercially, we can develop our talent and deliver growth for the business. 

Rewards & benefits

Explore the rewards and benefits that help you thrive – at every stage of your life and your career. Enjoy competitive salaries, employee rewards and a brilliant range of benefits you can tailor to suit your own health, wellbeing, financial and lifestyle choices. Make the most of a myriad of opportunities for training and professional development to grow your skills and expertise. And combine our hybrid working culture and flexible holiday allowances to balance a great job and fulfilling personal life.

Be rewarded. Find out more.

About AtkinsRéalis

We're AtkinsRéalis, a world-class engineering services and nuclear organization. We connect people, data and technology to transform the world's infrastructure and energy systems. Together, with our industry partners and clients, and our global team of consultants, designers, engineers and project managers, we can change the world. We're committed to leading our clients across our various end markets to engineer a better future for our planet and its people.

Find out more.

Additional information

Security clearance

This role may require security clearance and offers of employment will be dependent on obtaining the relevant level of clearance. If this is necessary, it will be discussed with you at interview. The vetting process is delivered by United Kingdom Security Vetting (UKSV) and may require candidates to provide proof of residency in the UK of 5 years or longer. If applying to this role please do not make reference to (in conversation) or include in your application or CV, details of any current or previously held security clearance.

We are committed to creating a culture where everyone feels that they belong - a place where we can all be ourselves, thrive and develop to be the best we can be. So, we offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements and employee resource groups to support all employees. As an Equal Opportunities Employer, we value applications from all backgrounds, cultures and ability. As a Disability Confident Leader, we are committed to offering an interview to all applicants who have a disability and meet the essential criteria. If you would like to be considered under this commitment, please let us know at the application stage.
#LI-INFRASTRUCTURE | #EnviroJobs #

Worker Type

Employee

Job Type

Regular

At AtkinsRéalis, we seek to hire individuals with diverse characteristics, backgrounds and perspectives. We strongly believe that world-class talent makes no distinctions based on gender, ethnic or national origin, sexual identity and orientation, age, religion or disability, but enriches itself through these differences.