Senior Design Manager

Senior Design Manager

North West | Manchester

Good design needs someone who can turn it into a buildable, coordinated and commercially sound project.

Peace Recruitment is working with a major UK main contractor to recruit a Senior Design Manager for its North West business, covering Manchester, Liverpool and the surrounding region.

This is an opportunity for someone who enjoys taking ownership, bringing different disciplines together and resolving the challenges that sit between a client’s ambitions and successful construction delivery.

You’ll join an established contractor with a varied regional portfolio across education, healthcare, commercial, residential and specialist science and research buildings. The business delivers substantial projects for public and private sector clients, offering exposure to demanding briefs, complex technical requirements and multidisciplinary teams.

If you’re looking for greater influence over how projects are planned, designed and delivered, this role is worth exploring.

The opportunity

As Senior Design Manager, you’ll lead the design aspects of tenders and live projects, working across preconstruction and delivery.

Your involvement will start early: understanding the brief, helping establish the design strategy, identifying the right resources and making sure the team has a clear plan. As projects progress, you’ll maintain coordination between consultants, contractors and the wider project team, ensuring design information supports the agreed construction programme.

You’ll need to be comfortable challenging proposals, asking practical questions and making decisions. Can the design be built efficiently? Does it meet the specification? Is it within budget? Have the implications of a change been properly understood?

Your judgement will help the team answer those questions before they become problems on site.

What you’ll be doing

You’ll take responsibility for establishing and managing an effective design team at both bid and delivery stages, ensuring the right skills, resources and scope of services are in place.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Leading and coordinating the design process through the relevant RIBA stages.

• Developing design programmes that align with the overall project programme.

• Organising design reviews and coordination meetings, with clear actions and accountability.

• Working with architects, engineers and specialist designers to achieve fully coordinated solutions.

• Challenging the brief and identifying opportunities to improve buildability, efficiency and sustainability.

• Ensuring design development reflects commercial requirements and cost plan allowances.

• Monitoring progress, identifying risks and keeping the project team informed.

• Coordinating input from contractors, planning authorities, building control and other statutory bodies.

• Managing design changes with the project manager and client, ensuring changes are authorised and properly implemented.

• Maintaining compliance with relevant legislation, standards, specifications and design management procedures.

Alongside the technical responsibilities, you’ll build productive relationships. You’ll need to bring people with different priorities together, resolve disagreements constructively and keep decisions moving.

What we’re looking for

You’ll bring strong experience of managing design coordination on construction projects, with the confidence to lead multidisciplinary teams and engage with senior stakeholders.

You should understand how design decisions affect cost, programme, procurement and site delivery. Experience of tendering and bidding is particularly important, including involvement in single-stage tenders and preferred terms procurement routes.

We’re interested in evidence of what you’ve taken responsibility for: the teams you’ve led, the programmes you’ve managed, the challenges you’ve resolved and your contribution to successful project outcomes.

You’ll also need:

• A relevant HNC, HND or degree.

• Membership of a recognised professional institute.

• Sound knowledge of construction processes, technical standards and compliance requirements.

• Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage competing project demands.

• Effective negotiation and communication skills.

• A practical approach to problem-solving and a willingness to challenge assumptions.

You may already be an established Design Manager looking for a broader challenge. If your background is in senior architectural or technical leadership, and you have substantial experience of tender input, consultant coordination and construction delivery, we’d also welcome a conversation about how your experience aligns with the brief.

Why consider this move?

This role offers the opportunity to influence projects from the early design stages through to construction, with responsibility for decisions that directly affect delivery.

You’ll work within a substantial UK contractor with a varied North West portfolio, giving you the opportunity to apply your experience to technically demanding buildings and develop your exposure across different project types.

For someone who enjoys leadership, commercial thinking and solving practical design challenges, it’s a chance to make a visible contribution and build valuable experience for the next stage of their career.

Interested?

For a confidential conversation about the role, project allocation, salary and package, contact Sarah Hobson at Peace Recruitment.

Email:
Telephone:

If you’re interested but unsure whether your current title fits, get in touch. We can talk through your experience.

Salary: 70,000-90,000 DOE + package

Location: Manchester

Type: permanent

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