Principal Consultant (Assets, Finance & Places team)

About us:

31ten is an agile, independent consultancy and certified B Corp. Trusted by our clients and partners, we’ve been named as one of the UK’s Leading Management Consultancies by the Financial Times every year since 2020.

We work in partnership with the public sector to make places better for the people that live, work, and learn in them.

Integrity, inclusivity, social and environmental awareness are at the heart of what we do, and we collaborate with our clients to deliver sustainable change, meaningful impact, and better outcomes.

Work-life balance is important to us – we recognise that everyone has interests and commitments outside of their work and so we strongly advocate for working in the way that’s best for you. Whether that’s part-time, condensed hours, from home or the London office, flexible working arrangements are actively supported.

31ten works across Local & Central Government, Housing & Development, Education, Health & Social Care and Blue Light Services.

Our services in these sectors typically take the shape of:

• Placemaking & Regeneration;

• Finance & Assets;

• Procurement & Partnerships;

• Customer, Digital & Technology;

• Strategy & Transformation;

• People & Change; and

• Business Cases.

About the role:

Principal Consultants at 31ten play a key leadership role in the business, leading delivery teams, managing accounts, and working closely with directors on business development.

We are keen to speak to candidates who are interested in helping us to design and deliver services to local government, which:

• Promote place-based investment approaches that drive inclusive economic growth and long-term value for local communities

• Leverage public investment to catalyse regeneration and sustainable growth through local economic strategies

• Delivers strategic asset reviews and develops asset-based business cases, providing a framework for our clients for managing, maintaining, rationalising, repurposing, and investing in assets to maximise long-term value and support local growth ambitions

• Supports the development of ‘places’ and helps secure future housing provision through sound strategic decision making by carrying out option appraisals and feasibility studies, stakeholder engagement, generating robust business cases and accessing regional and government funds and targeted project work

• Develops a strategic approach to securing investment by developing and setting up trading companies, joint ventures and partnerships

• Provide delivery expertise via complex, high-value procurement exercises and route to market advice

The points above reflect our broad-ranging mission, so we don’t expect relevant experience in all of them. In fact, our preferred recruits tend to have a focused CV with strong evidence of experience in some but not all areas.

In this role, we’d expect you to…

• Ensure strong project performance - leading team to deliver work on time and to budget, applying robust commercial management, anticipating issues / risks, and negotiating with clients regarding scope and fees

• Make sound judgement on when to escalate and offers solutions

• Take responsibility for high quality project work and deliverables, reviewing and ensuring quality of project team outputs, proactively keeping the Project Director informed

• Strong network in the sector and can quickly develop and maintain excellent relationships with clients

• Translate complex data analysis and diagnosis into clear insights and recommendations that take account of client context and strategic alignment

• Have a clear, compelling, and effective communication style that can flex to the audience and context and can effectively and credibly influence at a senior level

• Able to confidently lead on presenting to senior clients in a compelling and impactful way, and able to deal with challenge effectively

• Have strong sector knowledge, market understanding, and can spot, articulate, and run with commercial opportunities in liaison with directors

• Provide a considered company view on opportunities, leading the production of proposals and tender responses and taking responsibility for ensuring high-quality responses

• Act as a formal buddy and informal mentor to others

About you:

A great ‘31tenner’ is a self-starter with drive and ambition. We are looking for people who can build excellent client relationships and work collaboratively within a team environment. But above all else, you must be passionate about social impact and working with the public sector.

We hire the person first, experience second, shaping the role around the individual. We recognise that every candidate's experiences and background will be different. We value a broad, diverse range of perspectives.

We’re keen to hear from values-driven candidates, with:

• Strong previous experience in a consultancy, with a proven track record of leading and delivering complex programmes

• Strong previous experience in Economic Growth, Finance, Housing, Property, Regeneration and/or Placemaking

• Experience working either for or with local government, directly in a local authority or in a consulting role for local authority clients

• Demonstrable experience writing and leading on the development of HMT Green Book Business Cases

• A growth mindset, regularly seeking feedback and continuous self-improvement

• Initiative and ownership, self-managing your time, flagging your availability and clearly communicating updates with project teams, working across multiple projects in tandem

• The ability to engage successfully with clients, client teams and key stakeholders and to work in a relational manner/style

• A demonstrable commitment to improving public sector and local government services

• The ability to deal with ambiguity and to navigate complex or unclear issues

• The ability to think analytically, systematically, and logically, breaking down complex information to enable us and our clients to better understand them

• Be comfortable receiving and delivering clear, constructive feedback (or prepared to embrace the uncomfortable!)

• An active contribution to the development of our company culture, role-modelling our values and engaging with internal initiatives and knowledge-sharing

Benefits:

• 25 days annual leave + bank holidays

• Flexi bank holidays - the option to substitute religious holidays for a date that is meaningful to you

• The option to purchase up to 5 additional annual leave days (per year)

• Private healthcare package with BUPA and the ability to add family members

• Matched pension up to 6% of gross salary

• Enhanced maternity and shared parental leave

• Annual performance-based bonus (discretionary)

• Work-life balance – we recognise that everyone has interests and commitments outside of their work and so we strongly advocate for working in the way that’s best for you. Whether that’s part-time, condensed hours, from home or the office, flexible working arrangements are actively supported

• A friendly and supportive working environment with regular opportunities for collaboration, team socials and modern offices with excellent facilities for staff in a central location

• Annual team away day and Christmas party

• Opportunities to get involved in our social value programme of volunteering and pro-bono support to causes that align with our mission

• Continuous opportunities for career development and training, including support to pursue professional qualifications (that align to our work)

• Unlimited access to our online learning platform, You Can Now

• Salary sacrifice cycle-to-work, tech at home and electric vehicle scheme

• Access to our Payroll Giving scheme, enabling tax‑efficient donations to charities of your choice

Our interview process:

1st stage - Initial phone call with our People Lead

2nd stage - Technical interview - Includes an Excel test and case study / presentation task (2hrs, virtual via Teams) with two members of the hiring team

3rd stage - Values & behaviours interview - Final meeting with two members of our Senior Leadership Team (1hr, in-person)