Role: Head of Industrial Heat Decarbonisation

Location: UK Flexible

Role ID: 2023-1696

Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world

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.

We are currently looking for a Head of Industrial Heat Decarbonisation to join our Heat Decarbonisation team.

Purpose

We are looking to recruit an experienced and highly motivated person to become a Sector Head for our work in Industrial Decarbonisation within our Heat Decarbonisation team (around 30+ members of staff).  This person would lead strategy, business development and technical delivery of our growing portfolio of work in the industrial heat decarbonisation sector, leading a growing team of consultants already focussed on delivering work in this area.   This is an exciting opportunity to lead the continuing growth of our successful work in industrial heat decarbonisation and develop it even further.   The role would involve working closely with other Sector Heads within the team (including CCUS and Bioenergy) and other teams across Ricardo Energy & Environment. We also expect strong collaboration on hydrogen projects across the wider business unit. The successful candidate would join the business area senior leadership team contributing to wider business area strategy and leadership.

The role would entail:

• Business development strategy: Developing, implementing and tracking strategy for the industrial decarbonisation sector, covering market review, opportunity creation and identification, stakeholder engagement, building proposals, looking for follow up and expansion. This will include interacting with other teams and business development leads across Ricardo Energy & Environment to identify areas of collaboration and emulating synergies across different teams.
• Project pipeline management: Keeping track of all potential projects and project proposals in development, submitted, won and lost, and lessons learned.
• Bid decisions / procedure: Consulting with the team, decide which business opportunities should be pursued. Establish best practice in bid sign off, including ITT review, methodology development and costing. Follow appropriate bid procedure for higher value bids.
• Technical Leadership of project delivery and project managers:Ensure best practice is in place for the projects delivered in the sector, with project managers and directors being supported, developed and empowered to ensure the projects are successful.
• Project portfolio delivery management: Support and drive successful project delivery across the portfolio of projects, stay in touch with the projects in each area, and identify need and opportunity for intervention.
• Contribute to the strategic leadership of the Heat team: collaborate with other sector heads, BD leads, team leaders and project managers to meet shared financial targets and other relevant objectives.
• Team development and leadership: Bring together our existing team working in this area, and help them develop their expertise. Identify areas for growth and lead recruitment to build our capability.

Our team

We have a dedicated Heat Decarbonisation team, comprising a 30 plus-strong team of engineers, consultants and project managers, specialising in low carbon heat technologies, heat networks, decarbonisation of heat in buildings, heat networks, bioenergy/biomass/biomethane (supply chains, technology, policy), CHP (technology and policy), industrial heat decarbonisation (process efficiency, waste  heat recovery, fuel switching) and CCUS/BECCS.  This team is at the forefront of delivering heat decarbonisation solutions in the UK and internationally, from working with governments to develop policy, to implementation of heat decarbonisation solutions in the public and private sectors. 

Who are you?

If you are suited to this role, you will be experienced in delivering, managing and directing projects, providing strong team leadership, and in preparing / influencing / implementing successful business strategy plans. You will be keen to mentor more junior members of the team and we will support you to develop in both technical and professional areas.

You will be motivated to develop our work in this sector, alongside prioritising the effective leadership of a growing team.

We need an excellent communicator who can explain complex ideas and articulate proposals that meet specific client needs. Must be able to travel to sites in the UK and overseas when required.

Skills and experience

We are looking for an individual with the relevant practical experience in industry, combined with demonstrable experience and abilities across core consultancy skills, including project management, bid writing and technical project delivery. From a technical perspective, you will have excellent working knowledge and/or experience of working in an industrial sector, for example with combustion plant for the production of process heat or downstream heat consuming processes  in industries such as Chemicals, Cement, Iron and Steel, Glass, Ceramics, Paper and Board, Automotive and Food and Drink.

Our heat experts require a comprehensive range of skills and experience key to scoping out and implementing industrial heat decarbonisation opportunities and solutions. These include knowledge of industrial processes, (raising steam, drying, baking, curing, smelting etc.) and possible efficiency strategies, industrial decarbonisation pathways, heat recovery technologies, ability to generate and understand energy balances, undertaking of due diligence of technical proposals, and project financial appraisals. These skills are key for identifying and progressing technically sound projects which can be implemented efficiently and generate long term cost and carbon savings.

This role will require technical leadership of projects supporting our industrial customers to:

• Understand heat-using processes in industry
• Collect and collate data necessary to qualify and quantify the opportunities for industrial heat decarbonisation, including but not limited to process optimisation, waste heat recovery, low carbon heat technologies, fuel switching, CCUS
• Undertake robust analysis of the likely financial and environmental performance of decarbonisation pathways.
• Undertake technical due diligence of options/technologies presented

In addition, the role is suited to an individual with:

• A strong technical/engineering degree, and a background relevant to industrial heat decarbonisation
• Experience developing and implementing business plans, ideally in a consultancy environment and/or in the energy/heat sector.
• Experience winning and delivering energy projects, including managing and directing complex projects to a successful conclusion.
• Experience leading people and teams ranging from graduates through to more senior members of staff.
• Strong communication skills with experience of writing and presenting for different audiences 

Fluency in English is essential, as is a full drivers licence.

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 to 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.