Heathrow’s Early Career Innovation Competition

The next generation of innovation driven by early career professionals.

Heathrow has submitted shovel-ready proposals for a fully privately financed third runway, with the potential for flights to take off within the next decade. With the right government policies in place, the airport is positioning itself to play a central role in supporting the UK’s national mission for economic growth.

The £21bn runway forms part of a wider £49bn investment programme to expand and modernise Heathrow, including new terminal capacity and major infrastructure upgrades. Once delivered, the expansion would increase capacity to 150 million passengers a year, strengthening Heathrow’s role as a leading global hub.

Alongside these long-term plans, Heathrow has committed to £10bn of capital investment from 2026, doubling its current infrastructure delivery. This work will take place within a busy live operational environment on one of the most space constrained airport sites in Europe, demonstrating the scale and ambition of the programme.

To help deliver this expansion and uncover innovative solutions, New Civil Engineer in partnership with Heathrow is excited to launch an early careers competition, to encourage the next generation of engineers, contractors and suppliers to push the boundaries of design and delivery of aviation infrastructure and assets.

This new national initiative aims to shine a spotlight on emerging talent in aviation engineering and construction, inviting early career professionals to submit their ideas that could dramatically improve the delivery of construction and engineering for airports. The solutions can range from new terminal designs that save on material use, through to runway resurfacing with longer life sustainable materials but all submissions should aim to deliver improvements in the following key areas.

Heathrow are looking for improvements in:

• Project and programme delivery 
• Enhanced productivity
• Cost savings
• Sustainability

Successful entrants will be shortlisted and join multidisciplinary teams to work a single idea up into a real-life solution that could be deployed as part of Heathrow’s expansion.

Who can enter?

Civil engineering apprentices or graduates with no more than 5 years of experience in the aviation sector

Who the challenge is available for?

The challenge will only be available for individuals working in the UK from Heathrow’s preferred supply chain and wider engineering and construction firms that work in the aviation sector.

What’s involved?

Applications are for individuals only, to champion an idea you believe will improve the design or construction of aviation infrastructure and be supported by a senior colleague in the industry. Once the applications are reviewed, successful individuals will be shortlisted and allocated to teams to take forward one idea into final stage judging. Each team will work on a different idea and be supported by a mentor from Heathrow to drive the innovation as far as possible while remaining feasible.

Potential challenge applicants will need to be able to attend all aspects of the challenge, including:

• Launch workshop to meet your teams and mentors – 11 March 2026 
• Mentor meetings via committee – Teams will be invited to catch up meetings with their mentors during preparation for their final presentations 
• NCE Airports final presentation to judges – 19 May 2026