Are you a senior environmental leader ready to shape the future of a growing terrestrial ecosystems consultancy across the UK? Do you have the technical credibility, commercial acumen and leadership experience to grow a multidisciplinary environmental offer, develop new markets and build high-performing connected teams?
APEM is growing rapidly, both organically and through acquisition, and we’re looking for a Terrestrial Ecosystems UK Discipline Director to lead the next phase of our ecology and environmental consulting offer. This is a genuine leadership opportunity across a discipline that already brings together expertise in ecology, biodiversity net gain and natural capital, working across major clients, infrastructure, development and environmental projects.
Your role will be to take that strong foundation and build on it. You’ll shape the Discipline strategy, expand our technical capability and customer base, and identify opportunities to take our services into new parts of the UK. You’ll work with our wider leadership team to understand where the market is heading, develop new services and make better use of the breadth of expertise available across APEM and the wider Group.
Commercial leadership is a key part of the role. You’ll own the commercial health of the Discipline, driving revenue, margin, utilisation and pipeline while developing strategic client relationships and identifying opportunities for cross-selling and collaboration. You’ll have real influence over pricing, investment, resource planning and the development of propositions that deliver value for both clients and APEM.
You’ll also help us become a more connected UK-wide business. With teams operating across different regions, there is a real opportunity to harmonise processes, share best practice and make better use of our collective technical expertise. You’ll establish consistent standards and ways of working while retaining the specialist knowledge and local relationships that make individual teams successful. The result will be a more joined-up Discipline, better collaboration and a stronger proposition for our clients. For the right person, our ambition is that this role will develop into a Practice Director position, with responsibility for terrestrial ecology across the UK and Ireland.
To be successful in this role, you’ll need:
- Significant senior leadership experience within environmental consultancy, ecology or a closely related discipline.
- Strong technical credibility across terrestrial ecosystems, with the breadth to lead a multidisciplinary team.
- Proven experience developing and delivering a growth strategy, including new markets, services or client opportunities.
- Strong commercial understanding, with experience of budgets, forecasting, pipeline, utilisation, pricing and profitability.
- Experience building senior client relationships and contributing to strategic business development.
- The ability to lead geographically dispersed teams and bring people together around common goals, standards and ways of working.
- Strong leadership skills, with a track record of developing people, building capability and creating high-performing teams.
- The confidence to operate as part of a wider UK&I leadership team and influence across organisational boundaries.
Bonus points if you have:
- Experience across ecology, biodiversity net gain, EIA and/or natural capital.
- Experience expanding an environmental consulting offer into new sectors or geographical markets.
- Experience integrating teams, processes or capabilities following acquisition or organisational change.
- A strong network of strategic clients, partners and industry contacts.
- Experience developing technical standards, methodologies and best practice across multiple teams or regions.
This is a particularly exciting time to join APEM. We’re building a high-growth environmental consultancy with the scale and breadth to compete for major opportunities, while retaining the technical expertise and client relationships that have built our reputation.
If you’re ready for a senior leadership role that combines technical excellence, commercial performance, growth, people and genuine strategic influence, with the potential to progress into Practice Director responsibility for terrestrial ecology across the UK and Ireland, we’d like to hear from you.