Key Account Manager - Land

Location: Bristol, United Kingdom

Thales is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents. With over 7,500 people in the UK, operating across defence, space, aerospace, and digital security, we help build a future we can all trust. Thales supports the security and stability of our nation by providing extraordinary technology to our customers, as well as delivering social value to the UK with our products and services.

Key Account Manager - Land

Business Growth UK

Location: Flexible UK with regular engagement across MOD, Army, DE&S and the wider Defence community

Closing date for applications: Friday 20th November 2026

Build relationships that create growth. Shape partnerships that matter.

At Thales, our most successful Key Account Managers are trusted relationship builders, strategic thinkers and commercially minded leaders who thrive in complex environments. They bring people together, build credibility through collaboration and create opportunities that deliver long-term value for both customers and the business.

We're looking for an experienced defence professional with either an established network across the UK Land domain or a military background, ideally with experience working alongside the British Army or wider Defence community. You'll have a natural ability to build trusted relationships, understand customer priorities and bring people together to achieve shared goals.

This is a highly visible role where you'll act as a key representative of Thales to strategic customers, developing lasting partnerships, identifying growth opportunities and helping align expertise from across the organisation to deliver exceptional customer outcomes.

The Opportunity

As a Key Account Manager, you will develop and lead the strategy for strategically important customer accounts, creating long-term growth plans that align customer objectives with Thales' broad portfolio of capabilities.

You'll spend your time building meaningful relationships, understanding customer challenges and ambitions, uncovering opportunities and bringing together colleagues from across Thales to deliver value.

Success in this role will come from your ability to:

• Build trusted relationships across customer organisations and the wider defence community.
• Develop a deep understanding of customer strategies, priorities, budgets and future capability requirements.
• Create and deliver strategic Account Plans that align customer ambitions with Thales' growth objectives.
• Identify and develop strategic initiatives that create value beyond existing programmes and contracts.
• Act as the voice of the customer within Thales, ensuring customer priorities are understood and reflected across the organisation.
• Collaborate with and influence cross-functional teams across sales, capture, programmes, services, marketing and business leadership.
• Support the development of major opportunities, bids and campaigns that contribute to future growth.
• Establish effective governance and stakeholder engagement plans that strengthen relationships at all levels.
• Enhance customer satisfaction, trust and long-term partnership.
• Monitor market trends and competitor activity to identify emerging opportunities and risks.
• Deliver sustainable growth in customer value and long-term account resilience.

What We're Looking For

This role would suit someone who enjoys building relationships, connecting people and creating strategic influence through collaboration and credibility.

You'll likely bring:

• Experience within the UK Defence sector.
• An established network within the Land environment, British Army, MOD, DE&S or wider Defence community.
• A track record of building and growing strategic customer relationships.
• Strong commercial awareness with experience identifying and developing growth opportunities.
• The ability to quickly build trust and credibility with senior stakeholders.
• Experience working across multiple teams and organisations to deliver successful outcomes.
• Strong networking, stakeholder engagement and relationship management skills.
• Excellent communication, influencing and negotiation capabilities.
• Confidence operating within complex and evolving environments while maintaining focus on delivering results.

Relevant Backgrounds

We welcome candidates from a broad range of professional backgrounds, including:

• Former Armed Forces personnel now working in commercial, business development, customer engagement, account management or strategic leadership roles.
• Defence industry professionals with Land domain expertise and well-established customer relationships.
• Commercial leaders from SMEs or mid-sized organisations who have managed significant P&L responsibility and delivered sustainable growth.
• Strategic account managers with experience developing partnership-led growth strategies within complex stakeholder environments.

What Success Looks Like

You'll be supported to:

• Grow Order Intake and customer wallet share across assigned accounts.
• Develop and execute robust strategic Account Plans.
• Create sustainable growth through identifying and converting new opportunities.
• Improve customer satisfaction and strengthen senior stakeholder relationships.
• Position Thales as a trusted long-term partner to key customers.
• Build resilient customer relationships through effective governance, engagement and collaboration.

Why Join Thales?

This is an opportunity to influence some of the UK's most important defence relationships while working at the forefront of national security, defence capability and innovation.

You'll have the freedom to shape strategy, build meaningful partnerships and bring together expertise from across Thales to solve complex customer challenges and create long-term value.

UKEO (UK Eyes Only)
Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions. This role requires you to be a UK National and achieve Security Clearance (SC) without any caveats. It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance prior to commencing employment. If approved by the MOD, a dual national from a Non-ITAR country may be considered. Please visit the UKSV website for further guidance.
To be eligible for full SC, you generally need to have resided in the UK for the last 5 years. In some circumstances, a minimum of 3 years’ residence in the UK over the last 5 years may be accepted, with additional overseas checks.

For further details of the evidence required to apply for security clearance please follow this link -
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/national-security-vetting-clearance-levels

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At Thales, we ensure equal opportunities, pay and working conditions for all. The benefits we offer include private medical insurance, buying or selling annual leave, cycle to work schemes, employee discounts, paid volunteering day, stocks and shares, annual bonus and much more depending on the role. Read more about our benefits here.
 

We are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued for who they are and the unique strengths they bring. Discover more about our programmes, employee networks, wellbeing policies, and inclusive features here.

 

If this role isn’t quite right for you, we encourage you to join our talent community where your details will be shared with our recruitment teams for other potential opportunities. Join the Talent Community here.

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