People Spotlight: Meet David Jenkinson

Our People Spotlight series gives you an inside look at our technical experts around the world. This week, we are highlighting a program manager from our Buildings + Places (B+P) business line in the United Kingdom and providing an insight into their inspiration and work. 

David holds a Chartered Engineer status with the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Before joining AECOM, he had previously served 22 years in the Royal Engineers. Commencing his career as a soldier, he later transferred to become an officer focusing on infrastructure delivery, most notably on operational deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and East Africa. 

Having joined AECOM as an associate director in 2019, David was subsequently promoted to director and took over leadership of the Program Management team in the United Kingdom & Ireland region. Providing multi-sector program consultancy expertise, David’s team are specialists who operate within complex transformational programs at scale. 

Tell us about what inspired you to join the industry 

Having achieved all that I aspired to in the Royal Engineers, and much more, it was the right time for me to develop my next career. Having an engineering background that focused on enhancing operational capability of the Ministry of Defence and partners globally, I was inspired to join a company that focused on the built environment. In particular, I was looking for opportunities that would support my personal aspirations for generational change and improvements through sustainable practices and modern methods of construction.

What is your favorite AECOM project that you’ve worked on and why? 

My current role as the programme lead on the United States Visiting Forces Infrastructure programme. In this role, I generated a new delivery partnership at RAF Lakenheath for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) acting on behalf of the U.S. Air Force. This capability provides both programme management office functions and project delivery in support of all facility upgrades and new builds at the location.

Having mobilised at pace, the team set up all new process and procedures, ensuring correct resource is mapped and available, whilst responding to a complex stakeholder environment, this proved challenging but highly rewarding. With an attentive focus on collaboration management, the transition into a steady state of operating has been hugely successful, providing tangible improvements to the DIOs capacity for delivering works at Lakenheath, that will support the U.S. Air Forces’ ability to live, work and train at the base.

Tell us a story of how your work positively impacted the community. 

Whilst leading the Estate Wide Engineering Infrastructure and Resilience (EWEIR) programme at UK Parliament, my team and I developed and implemented a strategy for achieving net zero carbon targets across the Parliamentary Estate by 2050. This included a strategic vision for the built environment. The key challenge of EWEIR was to provide a long-term reduction of the Estate’s carbon footprint, a reduction in energy costs and better resilience against building, system and utility failures. To achieve this, EWEIR works would need to be delivered in accordance with the HM Treasury’s five cases model, through inflight projects and development of a proposed pipeline of works.

This complex and technically innovative programme of works required significant technical oversight and durable programme leadership that remained adaptable to the extensive and unyielding client protocols and procedures. Coupled with the required processes, was a complex environment that presented nuances with regards to stakeholder engagement and identifying the correct points of contact for advice and authorisations.

Share a piece of career advice 

When looking at leaving the military and career transitioning, my advice would be to firstly ‘focus’. Focus on the task at hand and break it down into manageable component parts. From here, plan how best to address each part and understand what is in your control (such as your emotional approach to decoupling from the military), and other areas where support may be needed (such as advice on potential roles and other careers).

Starting the process may appear daunting, but best to focus on the excitement and enjoyment of the challenge. Concentrating on the new ways of working, whilst retaining old patterns such as regular exercise and having hobbies outside of work, have been the backbone to my successful move from the military into AECOM.