Location
London

Hours
Full Time

Salary
Competitive, commensurate with experience

About the Role
Balfour Beatty is seeking a commercially minded and influential Senior Legal Counsel to play a pivotal role in shaping legal strategy across our Regional Buildings Business Unit. As a senior member of the UK Construction Services Legal team, you will partner closely with senior leaders to enable growth, support winning bids and safeguard long-term value across major Defence, Transport, Aviation and Science & Technical projects. In this highly impactful role, you will lead negotiations on complex, high-value bids and live projects—helping the business take informed, balanced decisions that strengthen competitiveness while protecting our commercial position. You will work at the heart of a rapidly evolving environment, providing pragmatic, solutions-focused advice that supports operational delivery and fosters trusted client relationships.

Key responsibilities include leading legal strategy and negotiations on complex, high-value bids, tenders and project agreements across major Defence and Buildings programmes; driving commercially focused, risk-balanced solutions that support winning work while protecting long-term value; shaping negotiation strategy by identifying deal-critical risks, viable trade-offs and creative commercial solutions; overseeing the development and implementation of legal processes, policies and standard documents; providing senior legal governance during bid reviews and advising on bid/no-bid decisions, departures and risk appetite; partnering with commercial, operational and bid teams to deliver clear, pragmatic legal advice aligned to client and business objectives; managing external legal advisers including budget oversight on complex matters and dispute resolution processes; providing expert support on disputes, adjudications and alternative dispute resolution; reviewing, negotiating and advising on bonds, guarantees, warranties and other commercial instruments; and leading, coaching and developing team members while contributing to the wider capability development of the legal community.

Day in, day out, our teams deliver some of the UK’s most ambitious, exciting and meaningful projects; developing, building and maintaining the vital infrastructure that supports national economies and strengthens communities.

Experience
- Strong experience within construction or infrastructure, ideally across defence or government-regulated environments
- Extensive working knowledge of NEC3 and NEC4 contracts
- Proven ability to lead complex negotiations and manage high-value contractual risk
- Sound understanding of UK government contracting requirements, including procurement and defence-related regulations
- Experience managing or mentoring legal team members

About you
- Commercially minded, with the judgement to balance legal risk and business opportunity
- Confident communicator, able to influence and advise at senior leadership level
- Pragmatic, solutions-focused approach to problem-solving
- Forward-thinking, with an interest in improving ways of working and legal innovation

Qualifications
Relevant legal qualifications and professional accreditation required.