If you’ve spent years procuring or overseeing major infrastructure projects in the public sector, you may already have experience that developers and investors value. The question is which part of that experience matters to the employer you want to join, and how you show what you did with it.

It’s also worth looking closely at the work itself. A role with a developer, operator or investment fund can take your career in quite different directions, even if you’re working on the same kinds of projects.

Where does public-sector infrastructure experience transfer?

If you’ve worked in procurement on major projects, you’ve seen how proposals are assessed and where they can fall short. You know what gives a public authority confidence that a team can deliver, what needs to stand up to scrutiny and where a bidder might underestimate the pressures the authority is under.

That perspective can be particularly useful to a developer putting a bid together, but experience alone won’t carry a move. What matters most is attitude: your ability to adapt to the different pressures of the private sector. There can be a worry that people who have spent a long time in the public sector have become somewhat “institutionalised”, so be ready to show how you’ve adapted to new demands before and how you’d handle commercial pressure.

If you’re targeting an investor, look at how the role is split. Your procurement experience may be valuable where the team needs to understand how projects are awarded and where delivery risks sit. If the role also involves assessing an investment case or making recommendations about committing capital, find out what experience the team expects you to bring in those areas. No single qualification will close every gap, so be honest about where you’d need to build experience. A staged move, or a role that sits between your current one and your target, can be more credible than a direct jump.

The same principle applies if your background is in asset management. Experience overseeing an operating asset can be relevant to an operator or asset owner, particularly if you can explain how you handled a decision about performance, maintenance or cost.

What do private sector employers look for beyond experience?

Most public-sector skills transfer. What tends to decide whether a move works is attitude: how well you adapt to the pressures of the private sector. The same is true if your background is in asset management.

You can show that adaptability by being flexible on pay, on the roles you’d consider and on working patterns, including time in the office and travel. A realistic view of your own market value matters too.

We recently helped a candidate move from the public sector into a private-sector investment role. What stood out was how open they were in conversation and the questions they asked, which showed they understood the pressures of working in the private sector. Their enthusiasm for the opportunity and appreciation of the scope for growth with the role was clear to both our team and the hiring company as well.

How can you show commercial judgement?

A job title or a list of projects gives an employer a starting point. What helps in an interview is being able to explain a decision: what options you considered, what you weighed up and what you personally did.

From assessing bids to shaping them

Illustrative example: A procurement lead reviewing bids for a major transport project notices that the cheapest proposal relies on a tight handover timetable. They ask the bidder to explain how it would deal with delays and use the response to assess whether the apparent saving is worth the delivery risk.

In an interview with a developer, that candidate could explain what made them question the proposal, how they tested the assumption and what they would do differently if they were putting the bid together. That shows how they might apply their judgement on the other side of the table.

From monitoring asset performance to taking responsibility for it

Illustrative example: A public-sector asset manager has worked with an operator to investigate recurring service failures. They’ve challenged the performance data, helped identify the cause and agreed a plan to address it. When exploring a role with an operator, they could talk through that decision and ask which parts of the response they’d own themselves, including any decisions on staffing, budgets or maintenance.

If you’ve assessed infrastructure bids, you know what makes a proposal credible to the people who have to approve it. That’s a perspective a developer can put to work.

What should you find out before accepting an offer?

Some of the most useful questions come up well before offer negotiations. Ask what the team identifies as success and needs you to deliver in the first six months, which decisions would be yours and what happens when a project or bid is under pressure. Ask for an example. A real example can tell you more about how the team works than a job description will.

Do your own due diligence on the employer and the role. The private sector can be demanding, and the grass isn’t always greener. In our experience, moves can come unstuck at the offer stage, when the reality of the change sinks in, rather than after someone has started. It’s normal for the switch to feel unsettling, so it helps to have thought it through early. A role might offer the experience you want but involve more travel or office time than you expected. Finding that out early gives you time to weigh up the trade-off before you have an offer to respond to. If you’d like to speak to one of the Largo Jackson team to talk it through, please get in touch.

What should you bring to a first conversation?

Come with a sense of the work you want to do and two or three examples that show how your current role relates to the new one. If you’re unsure which roles to explore, these are useful questions to start with:

• Which employers would value the experience I already have?
• Where would I need to build experience before taking on the responsibilities I want?
• What would be a credible next step if I can’t move directly into my target role?

If you’re considering a move, get in touch with Largo Jackson for a confidential conversation. You can also read our article on planning your next move in infrastructure for a broader look at the options. For more support, explore our career advice and mentoring page.