Principal Strategic Waste Consultant

Overview

Role Title: Principal Strategic Waste Consultant

Flexible: Harwell / London / Manchester/ Bristol (or Home based)

Salary: £45,000 - £66,000

Role ID:

Ricardo plc is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company, listed on the London Stock Exchange. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

Energy & Environment, one of Ricardo plc’s five operating business units, is a leader in sustainability consultancy, solving complex environmental challenges through industry-leading analysis, advice and data. With more than 40 years of heritage in addressing air quality, environmental and sustainability issues, our customers value us for our deep understanding and breadth of services covering the entire value chain from evidence, policy & strategy to implementation.

Our Strategic Waste Operations Team has an excellent opportunity for an experienced consultant to take the lead in delivering our strategic support to government, local authority and private sector clients in the UK and internationally. We are looking for an individual to complement and expand our dynamic team, supporting the growth of our strategic advisory portfolio.  This is a customer facing role and the individual we are looking for will build on their technical expertise to undertake networking and business development activities and will share their market knowledge with our clients and team.

Our team provides strategic advice through policy support, waste strategy development, service design and delivery, helping to create the business case for service change, defining data requirements and collection methodologies, modelling and benchmarking the performance of waste collection and treatment systems and facilitating national, regional and local waste workshops and training courses. Our focus is on helping clients to solve problems and developing their capabilities to continue beyond the end of our commission. We continue to help our clients achieve substantial savings and balance environmental, social and economic pressures whether it be on-site or in the board room.

Key Responsibilities:

A particular focus will be provision of strategic advice and reviewing Big Data helping clients to develop and implement of long-term resource and waste management strategies to navigate the changing global and national resource management picture.  You will be:

• Developing and delivering resources and waste strategies for UK and our global clients with a focus on the Middle East.
• Aligning strategies with best practice frameworks, e.g. net zero, data science based targets, circularity, Big Data for our global clients.
• Working across the whole Waste and Resource Management Team project portfolio, with an initial focus on strategic support relating to Local Authority waste and recycling services.
• Providing support to key decision makers in the waste industry, particularly Local Authorities and waste management companies.
• Helping develop new business through client relationships and leading tender responses
• Leading and supervising projects, and act as a technical quality checker for work developed by other team members.
• Working on projects such as service reviews, options assessments, option modelling, strategy development and Public Realm services procurement support.
• Exposed to opportunities to work on our growing international portfolio, particularly in the Middle East and ROW.
• Project Direction and Project Management of projects ranging from £20k-250k.
• Client management, interpreting client expectations into successful project delivery.
• Quality assurance and technical review of project work undertaken by others.
• Reporting to the Technical Area Manager for Strategic Waste Operations.
• Responsible for the quality of own work and the work of others, both written and in spreadsheet form.
• Contribute toward the process of winning new business, through networks and relationships, including writing proposals and attending conferences and events.

Key competencies and experience:

• Experienced consultant or experience in a similar environment
• Project management and delivery, including management of more junior staff and sub-contractors
• Excellent communication skills and ability to present at and facilitate client workshops, seminars etc, as well as being accessible, approachable, and flexible with the team
• Experience of developing and delivering resources and waste strategies at a local or national level
• Ability to interpret complex issues and data, and identify solutions quickly
• Knowledgeable about the UK waste market and the changing policy landscape, key players, service models, technologies
• Ability to present technical information to a non-technical audience and communicate clearly with our clients at all levels
• Must be able to conduct and analyse appropriately referenced research with minimal guidance, and arrive at well-reasoned conclusions from its analysis
• A high level of numeracy and a talent for numerical analysis
• Ability to write clear, concise and accurate reports, which are tailored to the audience

Desirable:

• Experience of international waste management policy
• Experience with circular economy and carbon policy
• An interest in the wellbeing and development of colleagues and the ability to build rapport and develop trust with team members
• Member of an accredited body

Working here

Ricardo is an exciting and rewarding place to work and you have the opportunity to make a difference. You will work with teams of talented, dedicated, and supportive individuals. Alongside having a fantastic opportunity to develop your career with us through our broad range of projects, mentoring opportunities and a personalised approach to your learning and development. We are always keen to hear from people who have driven, ambition and a flair for innovative thinking.

Wellbeing and work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that's working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential. Our People are important to us, and we take pride in our wellbeing programmes and policies that support individuals including flexible working, carers policy, mental health first aiders and readily available support through our extensive Employee Assistance programme.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees and ensure an inclusive culture, we are a recognised as a 'disability confident' employer.

Benefits

Our core benefits include 25 days' annual leave, plus 8 flexible bank holidays, a competitive company pension scheme, life assurance and professional subscriptions reimbursement. We also offer a wide range of flexible benefits to suit your lifestyle.

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.