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AECOM

Associate Director - Rail

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Start here. Grow here.

AECOM is seeking a highly experienced and dynamic Associate Director to lead high-profile rail commissions, shape delivery strategies, and drive outcomes across scope, schedule, cost, risk, and quality. You will be a visible client leader, a trusted advisor, and a coach for project managers—championing digital delivery, safety, and collaborative behaviours across our programmes.

Here’s what you’ll do:

Client Leadership: Act as Account/Project Director on major rail commissions; build trusted relationships and ensure client satisfaction.

Delivery Excellence: Lead end-to-end project management from business case through delivery and handover, governing scope, schedule, budget, risk, and change.

Governance & Controls: Establish PMO frameworks, stage gates, performance reporting, and assurance in line with client and industry standards.

Commercial Management: Manage contracts and suppliers, oversee procurement, and safeguard margin, cashflow, and risk exposure.

Planning & Risk: Direct integrated schedules, dependencies, and interfaces; lead quantitative/qualitative risk management and mitigation.

Stakeholder Management: Coordinate with operators, maintainers, regulators, community stakeholders, and third parties to secure timely approvals.

Digital & Innovation: Embed data-driven controls, BIM-enabled workflows, and dashboards to improve predictability and transparency.

Health, Safety & Quality: Model our safety culture and ensure robust quality management throughout the lifecycle.

People Leadership: Mentor and develop project managers; lead resource planning, capability building, and high-performing teams.

Work Winning: Shape capture strategies, lead bids/proposals, and present compelling value propositions that differentiate AECOM.

Ready to push the limits of what’s possible?

Here’s what we’re looking for:

  • Extensive experience delivering complex rail projects/programmes (typically 12+ years) with proven leadership on multi-disciplinary assignments
  • Degree in engineering, construction/project management, or a related discipline
  • Professional accreditation (e.g., MAPM/ChPP, PMP, PE/CEng, PRINCE2 or equivalent) or progress toward it
  • Strong command of project controls, scheduling (e.g., Primavera P6/MS Project), risk, change, and commercial management (e.g., NEC or relevant regional forms).
  • Familiarity with rail development and assurance processes (e.g., GRIP/PACE or regional equivalents) and systems integration principles.
  • Demonstrated success in client development, stakeholder engagement, and leading distributed teams.
  • Track record in bid leadership and securing new work.
  • Hybrid working with flexibility to base you at the AECOM office closest to your home.
  • Meaningful, high-impact projects that improve networks and communities.
  • Competitive compensation and benefits aligned to your location and experience.
  • Professional development, technical excellence programmes, and global mobility opportunities.
  • A culture of inclusion, collaboration, and support—bring your whole self to work.

At AECOM, we are committed to maintaining a secure and trustworthy recruitment process and take any fraudulent hiring activity seriously. To support this commitment, all newly hired employees are required to attend an in-person Day 1 onboarding at an AECOM office location as a condition of employment.

About AECOM

AECOM is the world’s trusted infrastructure consulting firm, delivering professional services throughout the project lifecycle – from advisory, planning, design and engineering to program and construction management. On projects spanning transportation, buildings, water, new energy and the environment, our public- and private-sector clients trust us to solve their most complex challenges. Our teams are driven by a common purpose to deliver a better world through our unrivaled technical and digital expertise, a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion, and a commitment to environmental, social and governance priorities. AECOM is a Fortune 500 firm and its Professional Services business had revenue of $16.1 billion in fiscal year 2025. See how we are delivering sustainable legacies for generations to come at aecom.com and @AECOM.

Freedom to Grow in a World of Opportunity

You will have the flexibility you need to do your best work with hybrid work options. Whether you’re working from an AECOM office, remote location or at a client site, you will be working in a dynamic environment where your integrity, entrepreneurial spirit and pioneering mindset are championed.

You will help us foster a safe and respectful workplace, where we invite everyone to bring their whole selves to work using their unique talents, backgrounds and expertise to create transformational outcomes for our clients.

AECOM provides a wide array of compensation, benefits and well-being programs to meet the diverse needs of our employees and their families. We’re the world’s trusted global infrastructure firm, and we’re in this together – your growth and success are ours too.

Join us, and you’ll get all the benefits of being a part of a global, publicly traded firm – access to industry-leading technology and thinking and transformational work with big impact and work flexibility. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person’s potential, and we’ll help you reach yours.

We are a Disability Confident Employer and will offer an interview to applicants who have a disability or long-term condition, who meet the minimum/essential criteria for the role. Please let us know using this email address ReasonableAccommodationsUKI@aecom.com if you would like to apply through the Disability Confident Interview Scheme.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.