Infrastructure executive search is the work of placing senior leadership into the contractors, consultancies and client bodies delivering the UK's infrastructure pipeline: rail, highways, water, nuclear and energy, aviation and the transmission grid. It is retained, research led and handled personally, from brief to placement.
Infrastructure Executive Search
The ten-year pipeline, and the leaders who will deliver it.
What this sector asks of its leaders
Infrastructure is delivered for regulated clients over long periods, and that shapes who succeeds in a senior role.
Accountability beyond the board. A Programme Director on a water or rail programme answers to a regulator's targets and a department's spending review as well as to a contractor's board. The leaders who do well here have delivered inside that accountability before and know how it changes a decision.
Alliances and shared risk. Much of the pipeline is delivered through alliances and enterprise models where the commercial position is shared across several organisations. A Commercial Director here has to run the commercial position of a scheme and the commercial relationship of an alliance at the same time.
The pipeline is public. The ten-year infrastructure strategy, the control periods and the asset management plans are published years ahead, so a business's hiring can be planned years ahead too. The searches I run in this sector are as often succession as replacement.
Scarcity. There are a few hundred people in the UK who have run a major programme, and every one of them is in post. The search is the only way to reach them.
The money is there. The people are the constraint.
The ten-year infrastructure strategy, AMP8, Sizewell C, HS2 and the airport expansions are all competing for the same few hundred people who have run a major programme before.
Every one of those programmes will be led by someone who is in post somewhere else today.
The roles I recruit here
The wider senior roles
Beyond the grid I also recruit Chief Operating Officer and group board appointments for infrastructure businesses, which run under board appointments. The individual programmes have their own pages under rail, highways, water and nuclear, and the civils contractors delivering them under civil engineering.
How the search runs
The brief comes first: the real requirement, the target organisations, and the profile that will succeed in your business. Then the mapping, a complete picture of who holds the equivalent role across that universe, with named individuals, current remit, reporting line and likely motivation. Every approach is made personally and confidentially. The shortlist is four to six, each with a written appraisal covering capability, motivation and risk, and it names the reservations as well as the strengths.
I am a qualified Quantity Surveyor who worked as a Commercial Manager at Sir Robert McAlpine before moving into search. Senior people in infrastructure take the call because the conversation is credible.
How the search runs here
What changes in infrastructure is the client: regulated, long dated, and accountable to a regulator or a department as well as a board. The leaders who succeed here have delivered inside that accountability before. The process is the same one I run for every senior appointment, set out stage by stage on the method page.
Common questions
What is infrastructure executive search?
It is a retained, research-led process for appointing senior leaders into the contractors, consultancies and client bodies delivering the UK's infrastructure programmes. The market is mapped completely, the people holding equivalent roles are approached directly and confidentially, and the shortlist is assessed rather than filtered from a database.
Which infrastructure programmes do you recruit into?
Rail, including HS2 and the Network Rail control periods; the National Highways frameworks; AMP8 water and wastewater; Hinkley Point C, Sizewell C and the small modular reactor programme; airport expansion at Heathrow and Luton; and the energy transmission and grid programmes. Each of rail, highways, water and nuclear has its own page on this site.
How is infrastructure different from building work at senior level?
The client is regulated and the programme is measured in control periods and asset management plans rather than in a single scheme's duration. A Programme Director here is accountable to a regulator's targets, an alliance's shared risk and a department's spending review, and the assessment tests for exactly that.
What does a retained infrastructure search cost?
Retained search is typically charged as a percentage of the appointed leader's first-year total package, invoiced in stages across the assignment. My fee is 22.5%, agreed in full at the outset with no variation later.
Start a conversation
If you are building leadership for a programme, a framework or an alliance, I would welcome the chance to talk. No hard sell, no obligation.
