Architectural Director / Associate Director

Sector Leader, Industrial and Logistics

Equivalent to Associate Director / Director level

Birmingham | Hybrid, 3 days in studio Salary: circa £70,000 to £100,000 depending on experience and what you bring with you, plus performance bonus and a genuine route to equity

Build your own division. Keep the safety net.

Most architects who want to run something end up with a choice: stay where you are and wait, or go out on your own and carry the risk yourself.

This is the third option.

An AJ100 multidisciplinary practice is launching a dedicated Industrial and Logistics division, and they are hiring the person who will own it. Not inherit it. Not join it. Own it, from a standing start, with the brand, the balance sheet and the client relationships of an established practice behind you.

As the founding director of the business put it: this is the benefit of starting your own business up without the risk of it and the pressure of it. An umbrella over your head, and a real commitment to making it work. In his words, it is not a short term thing where we give it six months and see what happens.

What is already on the table

The groundwork is done. What is missing is you.

• The relationships already exist. The board level sponsor for this division has spent months building contacts across the sector and is currently holding meetings back because he does not want to walk into a room without the right person alongside him. Those introductions are waiting for your first week, not your first year.
• Clients are asking. Feasibility work has been discussed and informally agreed with several developers on a "do a good job and the pipeline follows" basis.
• The market is moving in one direction. Ecommerce expansion, the government's defence spending commitment feeding manufacturing and construction, data centres, and continual expansion from large operators. Meanwhile the pool of architectural practices genuinely credible in this sector is small.
• You are not doing it alone. Planning, technical and quantity surveying disciplines sit in house alongside you, and a team will be built around you as the division grows.
• You report directly to a business owner and board director, working with him daily. Not through three layers of management.

What you would actually be doing

This is a hands on leadership role, and it needs to be. To start with you will be doing the work as well as winning it: feasibility layouts, master planning on sites ranging from a few acres to a hundred, fee proposals, and technical delivery through to construction information. Over time you build the team, train people up, and work your way out of the drawing so you can spend more time in front of clients.

You will also be the one deciding how this division runs. Processes, templates, standards, how work is priced, how the sector is presented to the market. There is a portfolio to build on but very little structure around this sector yet. That is deliberate. It is yours to design.

Who this is for

• An architect (ARB or RIBA registered) or a properly qualified architectural technician (CIAT) with strong technical credentials. Architects preferred, given the design pressure now coming through planning on large box schemes.
• Around 10 years or more of experience, the large majority of it genuinely immersed in industrial and logistics. This is the one non negotiable. Deep sector experience is essential.
• Real experience across MLI (multi let industrial) and mid box, roughly 50,000 to 100,000 square feet. Big box or mega box exposure is a bonus. You know yard depths, bay counts, parking ratios and mezzanines without looking them up.
• Currently at associate, senior associate or associate director level, or a director in a smaller practice who is still close to the work. Likely coming from a recognised specialist in this sector.
• Comfortable being the person a developer or investor interviews. You will be in front of business owners who have been doing this for 25 years, and they will decide within one meeting whether they trust you.
• Commercially aware. You can build and defend a fee, and you understand where fees sit in this market.
• AutoCAD and Revit. Training is available if one is stronger than the other.

Personality matters as much as the CV here. The practice is looking for someone calm, personable and able to read a room. Someone resilient, ambitious, reliable, and who leads with a can do attitude rather than a reason why not. Someone who can mentor and grow a team, not just deliver through one. Confidence and self direction are essential, because for the first stretch you are building rather than maintaining. This will not suit someone who wants a ready made desk and a full order book on day one.

What you get

• Salary in the region of £70,000 to £100,000, set against your experience and the value you bring. The upper end is realistic for someone arriving with a work stream behind them.
• Performance related bonus, weighted towards the people actually driving results rather than spread thinly across everyone.
• A structured route to equity. The practice operates an EMI share scheme and has already brought people below director level into it. Ownership is on the table for whoever makes this division succeed.
• Progression into the board. The business is actively building its board and its service director tier, and success here is the obvious route in.
• Hybrid working, 3 days in studio, with flexibility on start and finish times.
• A transparent culture with regular feedback, full company gatherings, research and learning groups, a social calendar, and an early finish on a Friday.
• Assessment based on what you do, not what you say.

The honest version...

The perfect candidate for this probably has a comfortable job right now. The reason to look at this one is that very few opportunities let you build a division from nothing, put your name on it, and take a share of what you create, while someone else carries the overhead and opens the first doors for you.

If that is the thing you have been waiting for, this is it.

I’m interested, what next?

Option 1 - Click the apply button (don’t worry, we’ll discuss your application before submission)

Option 2 – Drop me a message on LinkedIn (Louis Plevin)

Option 3 - email the team at