Senior Legal Counsel at Vattenfall in Bristol, England, GB

Company Description

Vattenfall is a European energy company with approximately 21000 employees. For more than 100 years we have electrified industries, supplied energy to people’s homes and modernized our way of living through innovation and cooperation. We now want to make fossil-free living possible within one generation. To be able to reach this ambitious goal we are looking for talented individuals who, in addition to their passion for their own role, also have strong team spirit and want to contribute to supporting a meaningful corporate mission.

Job Description

Are you a senior lawyer looking to be part of a growing low carbon heat business and contribute to fossil free living? If so, this is for you.

We offer an exciting opportunity for a senior legal counsel to take a leading role in paving the way for Vattenfall and its customers and partners towards a fossil free future. We are looking for a senior legal counsel to support our UK Heat business, part of the Vattenfall organisation.

Vattenfall is one of Europe’s largest electricity generators and producers of heat and operates in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. We exist to help our customers and partners power their lives in ever climate smarter ways and aim to deliver fossil free living within one generation.

Vattenfall Heat UK aims to provide low carbon heat and energy services across the UK. We are actively deploying heat networks in London, Edinburgh and Bristol whilst pursuing a number of other strategic opportunities with local authorities, private developers and waste heat partnerships. Given the growth in this business, we have a need for a Senior Legal Counsel in our UK Legal team to work closely with this business.

Your responsibilities as Senior Legal Counsel

As the demand for legal expertise in our Heat business continues to grow, we are looking to recruit a Senior Legal Counsel in our Legal team in the UK. You will be focussed on all legal and contractual matters for the UK Heat business, reporting to the Director of Legal, UK. You will be working closely with the two other Senior Legal Counsels who support this part of the business, together with the Managing Director and other business Directors, Sales, Delivery, and Project Managers focussing on both upstream and downstream contracts and associated legal matters.

You will be expected to be able to “hit the ground running” on a wide variety of legal matters. This includes having an excellent working knowledge of negotiating commercial contracts, including contracts of a public nature, whilst working on the delivery, supply, construction and operational contracts for large network schemes comprising heating, cooling and other innovative energy solutions. You will need to be able to structure new relationships contractually, understand the interaction with various public/private corporate structures and advise on both organic and inorganic growth. You will also need to understand “backing risk” between upstream and downstream contracts and be comfortable negotiating connection and supply arrangements.

A corporate, commercial and/or construction background (in either legal or a previous career) would be an advantage in applying for this role, dealing with the entirety of contractual relationships in a “cradle to grave” approach. Experience in negotiating necessary land rights would be useful or if not, a willingness to upskill in this area. The Heat team handles a range of contracts of varying value and type and therefore an ability to demonstrate a wide range of legal and commercial skills will be beneficial.

Ideally you will have experience of negotiating and structuring project contracts in the district heating or utilities market in either the public or private sector. Renewables experience would also be very helpful.

Your personality and background

The remit is diverse and challenging and you will need to be commercially aware and minded, pragmatic and able to work effectively under pressure. You will be an exceptional and talented individual with good communication and interpersonal skills, and able to work independently as well as part of a team. You will need to be able to think and act strategically and take a risk based view when providing responsive and effective advice.

The Heat team is an exciting and dynamic team. You will be expected to work daily with colleagues from a number of different specialisms, from engineering and design, to health and safety, to operational and customer service teams. You will need to be extremely organised, dedicated and proactive in order to manage a multitude of tasks on a daily basis.

Qualifications

You will be an English or Scottish qualified lawyer, with solid commercial experience gained at a respected law firm or in-house of at least 5 years’ PQE.

Additional Information

Our offer

Good remuneration, a challenging and international work environment, and the possibility to work with some of the best in the field. You will be working in interdisciplinary teams and you can always count on support from committed colleagues. We offer attractive employment conditions and opportunities for personal and professional development.

More Information

We welcome your application in English, no later than 10/06/2026. We kindly request that you do not send applications by any means other than via our website as we cannot guarantee that we will be able to process applications that are not made via our website. Please note - we aim to share feedback by 15/06/2026 with a view of first round interviews taking place by w/c 29th June.

For more information about the recruitment process you are welcome to contact our recruiter Adam Hammond via adam.hammond@vattenfall.com

Commitment to Diversity

Vattenfall is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive community - a place where we can all be ourselves and succeed on merit. We offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums and services to support all our employees.

We are convinced that diversity contributes to build a more profitable and attractive company and we strive to be good role model regarding diversity. Vattenfall works actively for all employees to have the same opportunities and rights regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, transgender identity or expression, religion or other belief, disability or sexual orientation.

We look forward to receiving your application!