Graduate Natural Capital

Our Natural Capital team are currently seeking a graduate within our Edinburgh office from January 2025 onwards. 

About our Team 

The team works across all aspects of the natural capital agenda including natural capital accounting and appraisal, environmental valuation, environmental net gain analysis, and nature markets.  For this role, we expect a particular focus will be on nature recovery strategy work.

Our clients and projects cover public, private and third sector organisations both in the UK and internationally across a range of sectors including water, energy, agriculture, forestry, and transport. 

You’ll employ your creativity to develop ideas and solutions to deliver effective environmental and sustainability outcomes and improved project performance.  You may also have the opportunity to get involved in our Natural Capital Laboratory – an area of wilderness in the Scottish Highlands at which we are trialling new technologies and techniques for collecting, analysing and communicating information on environmental change.

Here's what you'll do: 

As a graduate in the team, the successful individual will: 

• Support and contribute to the natural capital team's projects
• Undertake research and analysis, combining desk studies with analysis of quantitative and qualitative data
• Help to prepare and contribute to meetings with clients and report writing
• Contribute to ideas and potential solutions for natural capital projects 

Enjoy the Perks

At AECOM, you'll enjoy a range of core and personalised benefits designed to support your future and well-being, customised to fit your lifestyle. Take advantage of career development opportunities, our flexible hybrid working model to ensure a work-life balance that suits your lifestyle, technical practice networks, AECOM University, and volunteering days.

Here is what you will get from us

On the job support and learning

When a graduate starts at AECOM, we pair them with a senior member of the team who will guide and mentor them through their initial period working on live projects and business development tasks, to support with any technical queries. 

Graduate Development Programme

Our 2 year  graduate ADVANCE programme is designed to help you build your career in AECOM. You will attend a number of instructor-led training sessions where you will meet and hear from people across the business and take part in a series of interactive activities to equip you with the knowledge and skills you need to succeed in your role.   Alongside the instructor-led elements of the ADVANCE programme, you will also engage with an online curriculum via AECOM University and have the opportunity to join the ADVANCE webinar series.  We will provide you with all the support and tools you need to achieve your professional development ambitions, which may include Chartership with the relevant international professional institution eg Institute for Environmental Management or Assessment (IEMA), Institute of Environmental Science (IES). 

We have more than 750 graduates on our programmes across the UK and Ireland from more than 40 different disciplines, each making a tangible difference to the environment in which we live and work.

See our digital early careers e-brochure here

Ready to push the limits of what’s possible?

Here’s what we’re looking for:

Ideally, you will have a relevant first degree and, potentially, a relevant post-graduate degree.  

Relevant first or post-graduate degree subjects include: environmental economics, environmental management, environmental planning, environmental policy, environmental science, social science, sustainable development.

• Excellent numerical, analytical and economic skills and the aptitude to understand and communicate complex technical information
• Ability to work flexibly under pressure, responding to changing project and programme demands
• Good communications skills – verbal and written (fluent in English) – with the confidence to engage with a variety of people (clients, colleagues, stakeholders and sub-contractors alike) and the aptitude to rationally explain, explore and discuss technical issues and capture feedback
• Time Management - Work within schedules to coordinate the completion of tasks through to final project completion
• Willingness and ability to learn
• Strong research and report writing skills (including web-based research) to support team on technical issues influencing project development, attention to detail. 
• Ability to summarise technical information effectively and demonstrate diligent research techniques
• Strong skills in Microsoft Office specifically Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• Strong numerate skills.
• Self-starter and enthusiastic, develops and delivers work under own initiative.
• Solid attention to detail and thorough approach to work.
• Strong organisational skills
• Commercial awareness for business development, marketing, and proposal preparation.

Preferred

• Experience in economic valuation using non-market valuation methods to support policy- and decision-making

Applicants are encouraged to apply as early as possible since CVs will be reviewed, and candidates selected for an advanced offer start.    

Please include a covering letter with your application and provide all predicted and/or obtained academic grades.

You must have permanent right to work in the UK as we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this position.

About AECOM

AECOM is the world’s trusted infrastructure consulting firm, delivering professional services throughout the project lifecycle – from advisory, planning, design and engineering to program and construction management. On projects spanning transportation, buildings, water, new energy and the environment, our public- and private-sector clients trust us to solve their most complex challenges. Our teams are driven by a common purpose to deliver a better world through our unrivaled technical and digital expertise, a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion, and a commitment to environmental, social and governance priorities. AECOM is a Fortune 500 firm and its Professional Services business had revenue of $14.4 billion in fiscal year 2023. See how we are delivering sustainable legacies for generations to come at aecom.com and @AECOM.

Freedom to Grow in a World of Opportunity 

You will have the flexibility you need to do your best work with hybrid work options. Whether you’re working from an AECOM office, remote location or at a client site, you will be working in a dynamic environment where your integrity, entrepreneurial spirit and pioneering mindset are championed.

You will help us foster a safe and respectful workplace, where we invite everyone to bring their whole selves to work using their unique talents, backgrounds and expertise to create transformational outcomes for our clients.

AECOM provides a wide array of compensation, benefits and well-being programs to meet the diverse needs of our employees and their families. We’re the world’s trusted global infrastructure firm, and we’re in this together – your growth and success are ours too.

Join us, and you’ll get all the benefits of being a part of a global, publicly traded firm – access to industry-leading technology and thinking and transformational work with big impact and work flexibility. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person’s potential, and we’ll help you reach yours.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.