AECOM

Associate Director - Rail Planning

Job Description

Our Rail Planning Team is currently seeking an Associate Director/Principal Consultant (depending on experience) to develop the business based in Leeds or Newcastle, or possibly Scotland, with the following requirements:

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 and potentially Scotland.  This role will essentially be leading in work winning in this region through established and developed client contacts within the rail industry.  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, with bases in Manchester, London and Cardiff. This team has a national and international role to undertake rail planning work and therefore the candidate would be expected to demonstrate knowledge and experience of working on rail planning projects for the public and private sector. 

Typically this work will involve rail demand forecasting, either using standard rail industry tools such as PDFH (Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook) and MOIRA or bespoke modelling, leading to the development of rail scheme business cases for investment purposes. Therefore an excellent understanding of economic appraisal, including familiarity with WebTAG, would be relevant. Our portfolio of work for the rail industry also includes rail strategy development, option identification, market analysis and operational assessment. A wider knowledge of the rail industry would be beneficial. Knowledge and experience in areas such as rail operations, rolling stock, train performance would be useful but not essential. 

Minimum Requirements:

Candidates would also be expected to support the wider transport planning capability and therefore should also have: 

•    Proven project management and business development capabilities (including proposal writing)

•    Knowledge of the UK 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 and application of PDFH principles

•    Knowledge of the application of public transport modelling software

Preferred Qualifications:

•    Professional Accreditation, or working towards, such as CMILT, TPP, CIHT or MICE