Head of Commercial Acquisitions

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Job Description

This role leads Heathrow's highly complex commercial and industrial land acquisition programme in support of a nationally significant infrastructure project. With responsibility for approximately £2bn in acquisition spend, it provides strategic leadership, strong commercial judgement, and operational delivery oversight across one of the airport's largest and most sensitive investment portfolios. The role shapes acquisition strategy, leads high-stakes negotiations, and ensures land interests are secured in a way that optimises long-term commercial value, meets programme milestones, and complies with statutory, regulatory, and planning requirements. Operating in a politically sensitive environment, the postholder acts as a senior representative for Heathrow with landowners, businesses, agents, local authorities, and statutory bodies.

Leading a specialist acquisition team and overseeing a network of external advisors, the role embeds a culture of robust governance, commercial excellence, and proactive risk management. It is a senior leadership position with broad influence across programme, legal, planning, finance, and technical functions, playing a critical role in enabling the successful delivery of Heathrow's expansion ambitions.

Responsibilities

• Lead Heathrow's multi-year land acquisition strategy across commercial, industrial, and strategic assets, ensuring alignment with programme timelines, planning requirements, capital governance, and long-term strategic priorities.
• Provide senior oversight and challenge on acquisition pathways, valuations, due diligence, negotiation strategies, and funding assumptions, advising leadership on market timing, risk exposure, and long-horizon value.
• Lead the negotiation and completion of complex, high-value, and politically sensitive transactions, including both consensual and compulsory purchase routes, ensuring outcomes are legally robust and commercially defensible.
• Direct and assure the performance of external specialist property advisers, commissioning and reviewing legal, technical, and commercial diligence, and embedding strong frameworks for valuation, compensation, relocation, and cost mitigation.
• Identify, assess, and manage strategic, legal, operational, and financial risks across the acquisition portfolio, including dispute resolution, valuation challenges, CPO-related risks, and preparation of evidence for examinations, hearings, and inquiries.
• Act as a senior representative and trusted advisor, building strong relationships with landowners, local authorities, regulators, and impacted businesses, producing high-quality executive and board reporting, and upholding the highest standards of auditability, transparency, and public accountability.

Qualifications

• Significant experience leading large-scale, high-value land acquisition, development, or major infrastructure programmes within complex environments.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and coordinate multidisciplinary teams, maintaining effective delivery under pressure and across competing priorities.
• Strong applied knowledge of compulsory purchase processes, compensation frameworks, and planning regimes for major infrastructure projects.
• Proven commercial negotiation expertise across high-value, sensitive, or contentious property and development transactions.
• Experience operating within politically sensitive, regulated, or nationally significant contexts, balancing stakeholder, legal, and public considerations.
• Strong financial and strategic acumen, with experience managing large-scale budgets and the ability to integrate commercial, legal, technical, and political factors into sound executive decision-making.

Ideally, you will also have

• Relevant degree in Real Estate, Law, Economics, Planning, Development or related field.
• RICS, RTPI or equivalent professional accreditation.
• Experience within aviation, transport, utilities, defence, energy, or other major infrastructure sectors.
• Experience preparing evidence for examinations, inquiries or judicial processes.

About Us

There's something so special about working at the world's most iconic airport. Its sights. Its sounds. Its constant air of excitement. Heathrow is an amazing backdrop to a career filled with unique opportunities.

Every day, you'll discover a world full of fresh possibilities and end the day buzzing with stories to tell, as you encounter people from all cultures, nationalities and experiences. A world full of pride for what we do and no end of exciting career prospects to explore.

It brings out the best in all of us. And inspires everyone to deliver on our ambitious plans. Together, we're working to welcome millions more passengers while ensuring aviation can continue to be a force for good by leading global efforts in sustainability.

Join us on that journey and we'll help you achieve your ambitions too. Supporting you to learn, encouraging you to be yourself, backing you to achieve more than you might ever have imagined. Because there's no place like Heathrow.

Our rewards

We offer competitive salaries and excellent benefits that will support you now and in the future. As well as performance-based annual bonuses and our longer-term Share in Success Bonus plans, we also offer generous annual leave allowances and market-leading pensions. With family friendly policies, access to private health insurance and a wide range of wellbeing tools, we'll support you to be at your best inside and outside work. And of course, we'll provide varied learning and development opportunities too. Here you'll find everything you need for a fulfilling career journey that can take you in exciting directions.

Working Location

Our Hybrid working approach offers the opportunity for colleagues in some roles to work from home for an average of two days a week, providing the flexibility to work in an agile way whilst ensuring we deliver for the operational needs of Heathrow. Working arrangements vary from team to team and will be confirmed during the recruitment process. You'll need to be based in the UK and within a commutable distance to Heathrow.

Sustainable Travel to work

Heathrow's Sustainable Travel Guide sets out easy and sustainable travel options that everyone can access.

Equal Opportunities

As an equal opportunities employer, we encourage applications from all. We believe that diverse talent makes us stronger - not least because we welcome passengers from all corners of the globe, every single day. Heathrow is an accessible place to work. With five diversity networks, we champion inclusivity and celebrate individuality.

About the Team

When it comes to pioneering ambition, there's no place like Heathrow.

Our Heathrow Expansion programme offers a unique and exciting opportunity to play a defining role in one of the UK's most significant infrastructure projects.

You'll help shape a national legacy that millions will experience for decades to come, as we deliver the third runway, improve passenger experience, stimulate jobs and opportunities across the UK, and strengthen the global connectivity that powers trade and travel.

Modernising and expanding the UK's only hub airport and critical national infrastructure whilst keeping it fully operational and safe, creates a pace and complexity unlike other major programmes. It demands collaboration, resilience, problem solving and a desire to take on challenges that genuinely matter.

From securing planning consents to designing a new runway, modernising terminals and improving public transport access, and delivering on environmental and community commitments - the scale is unmatched.

You'll be part of a diverse team of talented colleagues, built on mutual respect and where excellence thrives. It's an inspiring place to work, with unlimited opportunities to make a difference as you help to shape the future of our world-class airport.