Joining Arup

Arup’s purpose, shared values and collaborative approach has set us apart for over 75 years, guiding how we shape a better world.

Arup is the creative force at the heart of many of the world’s most prominent projects in the built and natural environment. Working in more than 140 countries, the firm’s designers, engineers, architects, planners, consultants, and technical specialists work with our clients on innovative projects of the highest quality and impact. As a wholly independent organisation, we are owned in trust for the benefit of our employees and their dependants: with no shareholders or external investors we determine our own business priorities and direction.

About Arup University

Established in 2009, Arup University (AU) sits at the heart of how Arup learns, innovates, evolves, and delivers its best work. We enable our firm to see further, design better, and create lasting impact. Our mission is to help our members, leadership, and clients navigate change, deliver excellence, and thrive in a fast-changing world.

The core focal areas of Arup’s Strategy – enabling Total Design, being immersed in our markets, being agile and borderless, and providing an industry leading member experience – are all enabled by the capabilities, programmes, and services provided by AU. This includes our strategic foresight, research and innovation capability, our learning function, capabilities in knowledge- and information management, as well as our global skills networks and work in heritage.

https://www.arup.com/about-us/arup-university/

The Opportunity

In this role, you will be responsible for delivering our Water Research Challenge, one of our three strategic Research Challenges, each aligned with an Arup’s accelerator businesses (water, energy, and SIT). No single discipline can solve these research challenges alone. Diverse disciplines must be brought together and their collaboration facilitated to develop integrated, practical, and scalable solutions and take them to market. It also requires partnerships - working closely with our clients, universities, and governments to drive meaningful societal impact and ROI for Arup.

As a Water Research Challenge Manager, you will own and coordinate the full research portfolio aligned with a research challenge and be responsible for driving high quality research with clear ROI. You will keep abreast of the external water research landscape, Arup water-related client projects, water client needs, and relevant Arup water foresight work. Drawing on your knowledge of the internal and external water research landscape, you will work closely with the Water Challenge Steering Committee to set research priorities and help Arup researchers turn their research ideas into high quality projects that align with our priorities and deliver ROI for Arup. You will facilitate research ideation activities, connect researchers across the business, and connect researchers with e.g. skill leaders, business leaders, client relationship managers, and marketing and communication teams. You will support the Research Value & Impact Lead in assessing and driving the value and impact of research across your challenge, and the Research Engagement & Partnership Lead to facilitate internal engagement and external partnerships in support of your challenge.

At Arup, you belong to an extraordinary collective – in which we encourage individuality to thrive. Our strength comes from how we respect, share and connect our diverse experiences, perspectives and ideas.

You will have the opportunity do socially useful work that has meaning – to Arup, to your career, to our members and to the clients and communities we serve.

Key responsibilities:

The successful candidate will have strong programme management skills, excellent communication capabilities, and the ability to manage structured processes involving multiple stakeholders across the firm. Responsibilities include:

• Coordinate and manage the full water research portfolio and associated research teams, ensuring delivery of high-quality research with tangible ROI for Arup.
• Monitor and synthesise external water research, Arup client projects, and foresight insights to inform research priorities and opportunities, ideation and prioritisation.
• Plan and deliver water research ideation and dissemination activities, supporting Arup researchers to transform ideas into impactful projects that align with Challenge objectives and to share their findings.
• Work closely with the Water Challenge Steering Committee, skill leaders, business leaders, and client relationship management teams to set and refine research priorities and ensure portfolio alignment.
• Maintain and enhance research delivery frameworks, templates, and digital tools that enable efficient research processes, transparent decision-making, and knowledge sharing within and beyond Arup.
• Drive internal engagement within and beyond active researchers to nurture an effective research and innovation culture and help establish external partnerships with clients and universities to maximise the value and impact of challenge research.
• Support the assessment and communication of water research outcomes, ensuring learnings and value narratives are captured and reused across bids, client conversations, and service offerings.

Is this role right for you?

• Experience in programme management within a research or innovation environment, and preferable applying a mission-led approach.
• Proven ability to manage and deliver complex water-related research programme.
• Comprehensive and up-to-date knowledge of current research trends, emerging issues, and critical challenges within the water sector.
• Experience facilitating and driving research ideation and supporting high quality research projects from idea through to completion and ideally into commercialisation.
• Excellent planning, organisational and analytical skills with the ability to work systematically and manage multiple concurrent workstreams.
• Exceptional interpersonal skills to establish productive working relationships and networks with stakeholders at all levels of seniority across large global organisations.
• Ability to capture and translate complex data and insights into clear, actionable research value stories through excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (or equivalent experience); postgraduate qualification desirable.

What we offer you

At Arup, we care about each member’s success, so we can grow together.

Guided by our values, we provide an attractive total reward package that recognises the contribution of each of our members to our shared success. As well as competitive, fair and equitable pay, we offer a career in which all of our members can belong, grow and thrive – through benefits that support health and wellbeing, a wide range of learning opportunities and many possibilities to have an impact through the work they do.

We are owned in trust on behalf of our members, giving us the freedom, with personal responsibility, to set our own direction and choose work that aligns with our purpose and adds to Arup’s legacy. Our members collaborate on ambitious projects to deliver remarkable outcomes for our clients and communities. Profit Share is a key part of our reward, enabling members to share in the results of our collective efforts.

Benefits that work for you:

• Professional Growth & Development: Benefit from continuous learning opportunities, training programmes and mentoring to improve your skills and develop your career, such as ‘Invest in Arup’, where employees can receive internal funding to develop innovative technologies and services, or ‘Arup University’, where we provide thousands of training courses to our employees. We also offer English lessons paid by Arup Poland.
• Global Opportunities: Collaborate with colleagues worldwide and explore potential short-term or long-term assignments at other Arup offices and project locations.
• Financial Well-being & Ownership: Receive a competitive salary and benefits package and share in Arup's success through our global profit-sharing programme.

Different people, shared values

Arup is an equal opportunity employer that actively promotes and nurtures a diverse and inclusive workforce. We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds, regardless of age (within legal limits), gender identity or expression, marital status, disability, neurotype or mental health, race or ethnicity, faith or belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, and whether you’re pregnant or on family leave. We are an open environment that embraces diverse experiences, perspectives, and ideas – this drives our excellence.

Guided by our values and alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we create and contribute to equitable spaces and systems, while cultivating a sense of belonging for all. Our internal employee networks support our inclusive culture: from race, ethnicity and cross-cultural working to gender equity and LGBTQ+ and disability inclusion – we aim to create a space for you to express yourself and make a positive difference. Discover more about life at Arup at www.arup.com/careers/your-life-at-arup.

We are committed to making our recruitment process and workplaces accessible to all candidates. Please contact lia.wiltsher@arup.com to let us know if you need any assistance or reasonable adjustments throughout your application or interview process, and/or to perform the essential functions of the role. We will do everything we can to support you.

Our Application Process

To understand what to expect next, please visit https://www.arup.com/careers/recruitment-process/

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