Project Finance Associate 3 – 8 PQE – London
We are working with a leading international Projects & Infrastructure platform in London that is currently undergoing a period of significant expansion and strategic investment, with a key hiring push underway across its project finance practice. This is a high-priority, live mandate comprising three available roles (one replacement hire and two newly created positions), reflecting sustained growth in deal flow and increasing demand across the team’s core infrastructure and energy financing work. The team is actively engaging candidates now, with a clear intention to move quickly for strong profiles.
While there are candidates already in process (including referral-led applications), the hiring team has confirmed there is additional capacity to bring in further hires alongside existing pipelines, making this a genuine multi-hire opportunity rather than a single replacement exercise.
Team Overview
The London platform is led by a highly experienced and well-established partner group, including:
- Senior Project Finance Partners (leadership team)
- Multiple infrastructure and energy finance specialists
- One dedicated hiring partner overseeing recruitment into the group
The wider structure includes approximately 12 associates and 2 special counsel, operating as a close-knit, highly collaborative projects team with a strong emphasis on integration across matters rather than siloed partner streams.
The practice is primarily focused on project finance transactions, with selective exposure to project development, infrastructure structuring, and related advisory work, depending on deal flow and individual experience. The team is widely regarded internally as commercial, delivery-focused, and highly cohesive, with strong cross-partner collaboration and a notably team-oriented culture.
The Opportunity
This is a broad Project Finance Associate / Senior Associate opportunity within a rapidly scaling infrastructure platform. The role offers exposure to a strong pipeline of complex, often cross-border financing transactions, including long-term infrastructure assets and energy-linked projects. Work tends to be sophisticated in nature, often involving multi-party financing structures, layered capital stacks, and coordination across multiple jurisdictions.
There is also selective exposure to project development elements, including early-stage structuring, stakeholder negotiations, and risk allocation across infrastructure assets. The team is known for providing associates with early substantive responsibility, with direct involvement in execution, drafting, and coordination across lender, sponsor, and advisor groups.
Candidate Profile
This is a deliberately flexible and capability-led search, with a strong emphasis on practical project finance experience rather than strict pedigree or firm background.
The ideal candidate will have:
- Solid experience in project finance (essential)
- Exposure to infrastructure or energy-related financing work
- Experience at leading international firms or specialist infrastructure practices
- Strong transactional drafting and execution capability
- Ability to manage complex workstreams across multiple stakeholders
The team is open on firm background, including candidates from a broad range of international practices. Prior hires have included lawyers from firms such as Watson Farley & Williams, reflecting the group’s pragmatic approach to sourcing talent.
Foreign-qualified candidates may also be considered, provided they have meaningful London or equivalent international project finance experience. This is a substance-over-pedigree search, with strong interest in candidates who demonstrate technical ability, commercial awareness, and the capacity to operate in a high-volume deal environment.
The platform operates in a highly collaborative, low-friction environment, with a strong emphasis on teamwork, responsiveness, and shared ownership of deals.
The culture is described as:
- Commercially driven but not hierarchical
- Supportive, with strong partner access
- Highly team-oriented with cross-collaboration across matters
- Fast-moving but well-structured in execution
The team is currently in a phase of active growth and investment, with increasing deal flow and continued expansion planned across the platform.
Associates benefit from a high level of integration into live deal execution, with strong exposure to both clients and counterparties from an early stage. The role sits within a Cravath-aligned compensation framework, reflecting top-tier US market positioning in London.
Key features include:
- Competitive bonus structure aligned with US firm benchmarks
- Summer and year-end bonus cycles
- Optional fixed or variable FX arrangements
- Sign-on bonuses available in certain circumstances
- Performance expectations broadly aligned with a 2000+ hour framework, although this is not heavily operationalised in day-to-day discussion due to consistently high utilisation across the team
Overall compensation is positioned at the upper end of the London market for project finance practices.
This is a rare, multi-hire opportunity within a growing and strategically important Project Finance platform at a time of active expansion.
Key highlights include:
- Three live roles with genuine hiring capacity
- Strong pipeline of infrastructure and energy-related transactions
- Highly flexible candidate profile requirements
- Exposure to complex, cross-border financing structures
- Elite US-market compensation
- Opportunity to join a team in growth mode rather than replacement mode
- Strong integration into live deals with early responsibility
This is an active search, with immediate hiring intent and ongoing interviews. The team is open-minded, commercially pragmatic, and focused on securing strong, delivery-capable lawyers who can contribute meaningfully from an early stage.
Candidates with solid project finance experience who are looking to join a high-growth, well-capitalised, internationally connected infrastructure platform are strongly encouraged to explore this opportunity.
#J-18808-Ljbffr”, “datePosted”: “2026-05-19”, “hiringOrganization”: { “@type”: “Organization”, “name”: “Buchanan Law”, “sameAs”: “https://uk.whatjobs.com/pub_api__cpl__435983928__4861?utm_campaign=publisher&utm_medium=api&utm_source=4861&geoID=33” }, “jobLocation”: { “@type”: “Place”, “address”: { “@type”: “PostalAddress”, “addressLocality”: “London” } } }Project Finance Associate 3 – 8 PQE – London
We are working with a leading international Projects & Infrastructure platform in London that is currently undergoing a period of significant expansion and strategic investment, with a key hiring push underway across its project finance practice. This is a high-priority, live mandate comprising three available roles (one replacement hire and two newly created positions), reflecting sustained growth in deal flow and increasing demand across the team’s core infrastructure and energy financing work. The team is actively engaging candidates now, with a clear intention to move quickly for strong profiles.
While there are candidates already in process (including referral-led applications), the hiring team has confirmed there is additional capacity to bring in further hires alongside existing pipelines, making this a genuine multi-hire opportunity rather than a single replacement exercise.
Team Overview
The London platform is led by a highly experienced and well-established partner group, including:
- Senior Project Finance Partners (leadership team)
- Multiple infrastructure and energy finance specialists
- One dedicated hiring partner overseeing recruitment into the group
The wider structure includes approximately 12 associates and 2 special counsel, operating as a close-knit, highly collaborative projects team with a strong emphasis on integration across matters rather than siloed partner streams.
The practice is primarily focused on project finance transactions, with selective exposure to project development, infrastructure structuring, and related advisory work, depending on deal flow and individual experience. The team is widely regarded internally as commercial, delivery-focused, and highly cohesive, with strong cross-partner collaboration and a notably team-oriented culture.
The Opportunity
This is a broad Project Finance Associate / Senior Associate opportunity within a rapidly scaling infrastructure platform. The role offers exposure to a strong pipeline of complex, often cross-border financing transactions, including long-term infrastructure assets and energy-linked projects. Work tends to be sophisticated in nature, often involving multi-party financing structures, layered capital stacks, and coordination across multiple jurisdictions.
There is also selective exposure to project development elements, including early-stage structuring, stakeholder negotiations, and risk allocation across infrastructure assets. The team is known for providing associates with early substantive responsibility, with direct involvement in execution, drafting, and coordination across lender, sponsor, and advisor groups.
Candidate Profile
This is a deliberately flexible and capability-led search, with a strong emphasis on practical project finance experience rather than strict pedigree or firm background.
The ideal candidate will have:
- Solid experience in project finance (essential)
- Exposure to infrastructure or energy-related financing work
- Experience at leading international firms or specialist infrastructure practices
- Strong transactional drafting and execution capability
- Ability to manage complex workstreams across multiple stakeholders
The team is open on firm background, including candidates from a broad range of international practices. Prior hires have included lawyers from firms such as Watson Farley & Williams, reflecting the group’s pragmatic approach to sourcing talent.
Foreign-qualified candidates may also be considered, provided they have meaningful London or equivalent international project finance experience. This is a substance-over-pedigree search, with strong interest in candidates who demonstrate technical ability, commercial awareness, and the capacity to operate in a high-volume deal environment.
The platform operates in a highly collaborative, low-friction environment, with a strong emphasis on teamwork, responsiveness, and shared ownership of deals.
The culture is described as:
- Commercially driven but not hierarchical
- Supportive, with strong partner access
- Highly team-oriented with cross-collaboration across matters
- Fast-moving but well-structured in execution
The team is currently in a phase of active growth and investment, with increasing deal flow and continued expansion planned across the platform.
Associates benefit from a high level of integration into live deal execution, with strong exposure to both clients and counterparties from an early stage. The role sits within a Cravath-aligned compensation framework, reflecting top-tier US market positioning in London.
Key features include:
- Competitive bonus structure aligned with US firm benchmarks
- Summer and year-end bonus cycles
- Optional fixed or variable FX arrangements
- Sign-on bonuses available in certain circumstances
- Performance expectations broadly aligned with a 2000+ hour framework, although this is not heavily operationalised in day-to-day discussion due to consistently high utilisation across the team
Overall compensation is positioned at the upper end of the London market for project finance practices.
This is a rare, multi-hire opportunity within a growing and strategically important Project Finance platform at a time of active expansion.
Key highlights include:
- Three live roles with genuine hiring capacity
- Strong pipeline of infrastructure and energy-related transactions
- Highly flexible candidate profile requirements
- Exposure to complex, cross-border financing structures
- Elite US-market compensation
- Opportunity to join a team in growth mode rather than replacement mode
- Strong integration into live deals with early responsibility
This is an active search, with immediate hiring intent and ongoing interviews. The team is open-minded, commercially pragmatic, and focused on securing strong, delivery-capable lawyers who can contribute meaningfully from an early stage.
Candidates with solid project finance experience who are looking to join a high-growth, well-capitalised, internationally connected infrastructure platform are strongly encouraged to explore this opportunity.
#J-18808-Ljbffr…