Associate Director/Principal Consultant - Rail Planning *Job Summary AECOM’s Strategic Planning & Advisory’s team is currently seeking a full time Associate Director/Principal Consultant (depending on experience) to develop their rail planning business based in Leeds, Newcastle or Scotland.

You will have demonstrable business development credentials in the rail planning industry in the UK and ideally with a focus on the Yorkshire/North East/East Midlands/Scotland markets. This role will essentially be leading in work winning in this region through established and developed client contacts within the rail industry, with an expectation of building a solid workload to support the development of a small team. This will need to be backed up through being able to provide project management and technical support to the rail planning team across the UK, which currently has bases in Manchester, London and Cardiff. This team has a national and international role undertaking rail planning work and therefore the candidate would be expected to demonstrate relevant knowledge and experience of working on projects for the public and private sector across the UK.

Typically this work will involve working with clients both within and outside the rail industry, ranging from involvement in franchise bidding through to supporting third party rail scheme promoters. Clearly a wide knowledge of the rail industry would therefore be beneficial as our portfolio of work ranges from demand forecasting, to rail strategy development, scheme appraisal, market analysis, business impact and operational assessment. The use of standard rail industry tools such as PDFH (Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook), MOIRA and/or Railsys is something we are able to offer our clients, alongside more bespoke approaches to deliver solutions where appropriate *Minimum Requirements Candidates should recognise the core requirements of the role outlined above and would also be expected to support the wider transport planning capability within the company:
• Proven project management and business development capabilities (including proposal writing);
• Knowledge of the UK rail and wider public transport industry;
• Self-motivation and capability to undertake specific tasks with minimum supervision;
• Ability to manage own time to meet project deadlines;
• Excellent presentation skills;
• Excellent spreadsheet skills;
• Excellent technical writing capability;
• Educated to degree/masters level;
• Experience of delivering technically challenging public transport planning projects and specifically rail planning projects;
• Experience of liaising with public and private rail sector clients;
• Understanding of Health and Safety requirements;
• Knowledge and experience of rail planning tools, including application of PDFH principles and WebTAG guidance; and
• Knowledge of the application of public transport modelling software *Preferred Qualifications • Professional Accreditation, such as CMILT, TPP, CIHT or MICE