Head of Major Displaced Uses

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Job Description

The Head of Major Displaced Uses holds senior responsibility for directing Heathrow's strategy for acquiring and relocating seven operationally critical occupiers impacted by major infrastructure development. Operating in a highly complex commercial, political and regulatory environment, the role provides authoritative leadership across negotiations, land strategy, operational continuity and stakeholder influence, ensuring Heathrow's long-term capacity objectives are delivered while protecting day-to-day resilience.

The postholder leads a team of Project Managers, shapes multi-year strategies, and steers high-stakes negotiations and re-provisioning plans with a delivery value of approximately £2bn. The role is a senior influencer across the wider programme, ensuring decisions, risks and scenarios are integrated at the portfolio level.

Responsibilities

• Lead the long-term strategy for acquiring and relocating displaced users, ensuring alignment with Heathrow's masterplan, regulatory commitments, programme outcomes, and wider airport growth objectives.
• Act as the senior subject-matter authority on displacement, representing strategy at executive governance forums and providing scenario analysis, risk positions, and strategic recommendations to senior decision-makers.
• Lead complex, multi-dimensional negotiations covering land acquisition, hybrid compensation, re-provisioning, relocations, and commercial settlements, balancing commercial value, legal robustness, and political and community sensitivities.
• Direct the design and delivery of relocation and re-provisioning strategies, ensuring solutions are feasible, compliant, minimise operational disruption, and integrate effectively with planning, engineering, operations, and programme controls.
• Oversee external commercial, technical, and valuation advisors and manage a high-performing team of Project Managers, ensuring outputs meet strategic intent, budget parameters, governance standards, and programme risk appetite.
• Identify, assess, and mitigate strategic, legal, commercial, political, and operational risks across all displacement activity, ensuring compliance with legislative frameworks, robust audit trails, and high-quality board-level reporting and evidence for scrutiny.

Qualifications

• Extensive senior experience in major infrastructure, regeneration or development projects that include land acquisition, displacement or re-provisioning of significant occupiers.
• Proven capability leading complex, politically or commercially sensitive negotiations with senior external stakeholders.
• Strong leadership experience managing multidisciplinary delivery teams in high-risk, high-value programme environments.
• Deep understanding of commercial structures, valuation, land strategy and compensation frameworks.
• Ability to shape long-term strategies, influence senior leaders and operate with autonomy in ambiguous, high-pressure scenarios.
• Strong financial and commercial literacy, with ability to interpret valuations, business cases and cost models.

Ideally, you will also have

• Degree in Property, Planning, Law, Engineering or related field.
• Professional membership (RICS, RTPI, APM or equivalent).
• Experience of compulsory purchase, hybrid compensation schemes and NSIP/DCO-style planning regimes.

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.