Head of Property
X-Aero
- Vacancy type: Full-Time Permanent
- Closing date: 13/11/2025
- Salary: Competitive
About the role
The Head of Property will shape the future of Edinburgh Airport’s land and property assets at a time of historic change and growth. It is strategic commercial role focused on delivering the airport’s aspirations for the commercial property estate, managing the property estate, delivering forecasted revenue growth and developing new property revenue streams.
The Head of Property will oversee Edinburgh Airport’s extensive property portfolio of over 140 leases, leading the growth and optimisation of its diverse assets. This includes maximising value from existing properties, while delivering major new developments such as hotels, cargo hubs, and large industrial facilities that support the airport’s long-term growth.
The role will define and deliver the property strategy, ensure alignment with airport operations, stakeholders, regulatory frameworks, and deliver strong commercial returns while meeting sustainability, placemaking and regional growth objectives.
The role will be varied, leading on capacity and development projects, commercial negotiations and working with key stakeholders including airlines, handlers, hotel operators and other airport tenants.
Given this backdrop, the airport needs a senior property leader who can deliver the property & development ambitions, drive hotel projects, support the master-planning agenda for the broader estate, and coordinate/oversee the Crosswind Developments’ site delivery where it overlaps or interfaces with airport interests.
For a property/development leader motivated by scale, innovation and strategic impact, this is a rare and compelling opportunity.
What you’ll be doing
Strategic Leadership & Commercial Growth
- Define and deliver the Edinburgh Airport Property Strategy, ensuring alignment with overall airport and regional growth objectives.
- Lead the negotiation and management of all major leases across the airport estate.
- Deliver the property revenue budget and 5-year plan, identifying new income streams and optimising existing assets.
- Set ambitious and achievable commercial targets, with a clear roadmap to grow both revenue and contribution from retail and property assets.
- Identify and drive strategic projects that unlock new opportunities and maximise the commercial value of space across the campus.
- Manage the property development budget, forecasting, risk and return expectations, partner/investor relationships.
- Build business cases and investment proposals for new developments, ensuring robust financial modelling and commercial rationale.
- Benchmark Edinburgh Airport’s property performance against peer airports and commercial estates, identifying opportunities for innovation and growth.
Property Development & Master-Planning
- Lead the identification, design and delivery of new development opportunities — including hotels, logistics, office, and mixed-use projects.
- Oversee hotel/hospitality developments from site identification through to lease-up, ensuring alignment with passenger needs, brand standards, and operational requirements.
- Develop and own the airport’s land/property strategy: identifying development opportunities (hotel, office, logistics, mixed-use) on the airport estate and liaising with key stakeholders (local authority, planning, transport, investors).
- Play a key role in the master-planning of the airport estate and adjacent lands, including interface with the Crosswinds, to ensure cohesive growth, connectivity and high-quality placemaking.
- Coordinate closely with Crosswind Developments and external partners to ensure aligned objectives and delivery excellence across the estate.
Team & Stakeholder Leadership
- Lead and develop a high-performing Property Team, fostering a culture of commercial focus, collaboration, and customer excellence.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with tenants, partners, local authorities, planning and transport bodies, and other key stakeholders.
- Represent Edinburgh Airport in external forums, championing property and development interests within broader strategic initiatives.
What we’re looking for
We understand not everyone will meet all the requirements below, but if you can tick off most of the list we’d love to hear from you:
- You have 5+ years working in commercial property management or property development focused department and a track record of delivering property revenues.
- You have experience in contract negotiation, contract management and stakeholder management.
- You have 5+ years of line management, developing a team and succession planning.
- You have strong examples of developing new revenue streams and leading this from inception to launch.
- Proven track-record of delivering hotel/hospitality developments (from site strategy to operations/lease up) and/or large-scale mixed-use master-planning developments.
- Experience working in or interfacing with transport or infrastructure-led property assets, and familiarity with airport or aviation-adjacent property contexts is highly desirable.
- Strong capability in financial modelling, business case development, investment and partner management; ability to articulate commercial returns, risk and value creation.
- Excellent stakeholder management skills — experience working with public sector, planning authorities, transport agencies, community groups and private developers.
- You have excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
- You have experience of working with varied stakeholders and tenants.
- You are a leader, with examples of where you have led a team to succeed and deliver excellent commercial results.
About the Commercial Team
The Commercial revenue streams are forecast to grow exponentially to passenger growth in the next 5 years, these revenue streams support the overall growth of the Airport, allowing Edinburgh to compete on the global stage and win routes which support passenger growth.
The Commercial team compromise of Aero, Retail, Property, Car Parking & Digital and Commercial Services. Each department Head is responsible for delivering the annual budgeted and long-term revenue in their respective areas, however, the team work closely together to recognise synergies which will enhance the overall passenger experience, choice and ultimately revenue.
About the Commercial Property Team
The current team comprises of:
- Commercial Estates Manager
- Property Manager
- Property Operations Co-ordinator
The team deals with all aspects of management of the estate on a day-to-day basis, handling relationships and negotiations to maximise the revenue streams from the estate and dealing with compliance of tenant’s covenants. The Head of Property role will oversee this team, providing guidance and support while dealing with the strategic planning for the department and delivering results in line with agreed projections as noted above.
- Pension scheme- employer contributions can be up to 7%
- 32 days holiday, based on full time roles, increasing with service
- Annual discretionary bonus
- Supporting your health and wellbeing- private healthcare after 1 years’ service, access to our Employee Assistance Programme and occupational health services
- Free car parking on site and when you go on holiday
- We offer a range of other benefits, find out more here
Why EDI?
We are Edinburgh Airport, where Scotland meets the world. The success of the airport comes down to our people, and you can help us deliver even more big days for our passengers and colleagues. The development of your career is important to us, and we’ll support and encourage this every step of the way. As a business we’re driven by our values – they’re at the core of our culture and everything we do. We’re looking for people who will demonstrate these values day-in, day-out. So if this sounds like you, apply now and get ready for your career to take off.
Building a diverse workforce that is inclusive and accessible to all is a priority for our business. As part of this journey, we are proud to be the first UK airport to be endorsed by WORK180. They only recognise great employers for all women. Find out about our policies on our WORK180 employer page.
As a Disability Confident Leader, we are committed to ensuring applicants with a disability can participate fully in our recruitment process. Please let us know in your application form if you require any adjustments, such as parking arrangements or alternative methods of communication.