The Lechley Brief
If this was useful, the Brief is where I write about it first. My weekly email on leadership, talent and what is moving in UK construction and infrastructure, in your inbox every Saturday morning.
26 Oct 2026
308 senior roles open. One brief posted four times
The headline picture
308 senior vacancies, director level and above, are open right now across the contractors and clients on this list. Mace Construct alone holds 100 of them, with Balfour Beatty a distant second on 41. Between the two, that is 141 roles, well under half the total but still the two largest single blocks by a wide margin.
Top hiring companies
| Company | Open senior roles |
|---|---|
| Mace Construct | 100 |
| Balfour Beatty | 41 |
| HS2 | 17 |
| Wates Group | 16 |
| Kier Group | 15 |
| NG Bailey | 15 |
| Taylor Wimpey | 14 |
What changed this week
This week's new postings spread wider than the usual London cluster. HS2 opened a Head of Risk, Enterprise role in Birmingham. Skanska is hiring a Director of Procurement in Northern Ireland. Crest Nicholson posted a Land Director in Manchester, and Wates an Energy Transition Divisional Director in Liverpool. Mace added several head-of briefs in London, spanning platforms and engineering, data and analytics, and framework growth. If your patch sits outside London, this week's postings are worth a closer look.
The stuck-roles signal
Twenty of the roles on this list have been open for 98 days or more, and the pattern inside that group is the real story. Balfour Beatty has posted the same Project Commercial Director brief four separate times among those long-stuck roles. Mace has three variants of an Operations Director brief stuck at the same stage: two identical Operations Director, Project Management postings and one Operations Director, Project Controls. A role that will not close after three months is rarely a sourcing problem. It is usually the brief, the money, or the process that needs fixing, and firms in that position tend to be more open to a direct approach than a live job advert suggests.
What this means for your next move
If you are a commercial director or senior quantity surveyor, Balfour Beatty's repeated Project Commercial Director posting is a live door rather than a dead end. A role advertised four times has usually widened on salary or scope since the first posting went out. If your background is operations or project controls, Mace's stuck Operations Director briefs sit in the same category, and the repetition tells you where the gap actually is before you even pick up the phone.
Regionally, this week's new postings point away from London. Birmingham, Belfast, Manchester and Liverpool each picked up a senior brief this week. If you have been waiting for your patch to show up on a market read, this is the week it did.
Lechley Associates runs retained executive search for UK construction leadership, appointing Commercial Directors. Read how a retained construction executive search runs, and the method, stage by stage. For searches in London, see construction executive search in London.
Next step
If you have a senior appointment of your own to make, this is how I run a retained search.
How retained search worksHow retained search works
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