SYSTRA is one of the world’s leading engineering and consultancy groups, specialising in infrastructure and mobility solutions. With a strong presence in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the company has been shaping, enhancing, and modernising infrastructure for over 50 years.
SYSTRA is one of the world’s leading engineering and consultancy groups, specialising in infrastructure and mobility solutions. With a strong presence in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the company has been shaping, enhancing, and modernising infrastructure for over 50 years.
SYSTRA is one of the world’s leading engineering and consultancy groups, specialising in infrastructure and mobility solutions. With a strong presence in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the company has been shaping, enhancing, and modernising infrastructure for over 50 years. Although traditionally focused on rail, urban transit, and systems engineering — with flagship projects including Metrolinx in Canada; Amtrak in the United States; and the TransPennine Route Upgrade East (TRUe) in the UK — SYSTRA has recently begun expanding its expertise into new sectors, such as the UK water market.
For this position, SYSTRA were looking to recruit for a newly created Market Director role to grow their business in the UK water sector. They required someone who could play a crucial role in driving the company's expansion within this extremely competitive and growing marketplace. It was critically important that this person brought extensive experience in sales, bids and project delivery in the UK water and environment sectors.
This role reported into the UK Business Development Director, and it was essential that the successful candidate would be comfortable developing and growing an entirely new sector for SYSTRA.
The chosen candidate needed to have experience with either large engineering and project management consultancies, Tier 1 contractors, or asset owners, which meant our target company list was broad. In addition, the role's location was relatively flexible, with a preference for candidates based near SYSTRA’s main offices in London, Manchester, or York.
After receiving feedback from the longlist research, candidates were approached regarding the opportunity. One of the main challenges was engaging high-performing business development professionals within the water sector. Many were well-established, enjoying strong support in their current roles and having already built significant traction with UK water companies. For these individuals, stepping away from that momentum to join a relatively new entrant in the market represented a considerable leap.
To overcome this, we ensured that we were equipped with a compelling and coherent narrative from SYSTRA about their long-term commitment to the water sector. This included clear evidence of top-down investment, a well-defined strategy for growth, and a genuine opportunity for the successful candidate to shape and lead the function with a high degree of autonomy. We also emphasised the ability to draw upon SYSTRA’s established internal resources and delivery teams once work is secured, positioning the role as both entrepreneurial and well-supported.
From a longlist of 41, we presented a shortlist of 8 candidates. The successful candidate brought a well-balanced mix of client-side and contractor-side experience and was seeking the right platform to build on this by moving into consultancy. This role offered exactly that opportunity, making it a natural and strategic next step in his career.
