Design Manager (MEP)

Our MEP team are expanding! We are recruiting for Design Managers across the UK to help streamline and manage our projects effectively, with opportunities based in our Leeds, Bristol, Plymouth, and London offices. Our teams work on a variety of building services projects including defence, residential, commercial, education and healthcare alongside our growing data centre service. Working collaboratively with our national MEP team and as part of our wider multi-disciplinary offering, you will be joining a fun, highly engaged team who love what they do.

Your role will include:

This is an exciting and varied role, working closely with our experienced design teams to lead on key projects, ensuring they are completed on time and to the highest standard. Our business is truly multi-disciplinary, so whilst you will predominately work with the MEP team, you can expect to collaborate with our award-winning wider building services division including C&S, Fire and Sustainability. This incorporates:

• Collaborating with our experienced design teams to plan, coordinate and execute all design work-stages.
• Overseeing project schedules, resource allocation, budget adherence with regular reviews to track progress.
• Lead development of project scope, objectives, and key deliverables to align with both client and internal expectations.
• Organise and lead regular project meetings with design teams, key stakeholders, and our clients, ensuring clear and consistent communication.
• Work closely with clients and contractors with OFCI engagement to ensure clarity and efficiency is maintained throughout procurement phases.
• Manage project documentation, including risk assessments, change/deviation logs, with monthly reports. Ensuring all projects comply with company policy, industry regulations and best practice.
• Manage accurate and updated project tracking systems/dashboards ensuring visibility for the senior leadership team.
• Conduct post-project evaluations, documenting lessons learned and making recommendations for future projects.

Our Mechanical, Electrical & Public Health (MEP) Division:

Our MEP team are specialists in energy, sustainability, and engineering design. We bring buildings to life and create award winning, high-performance environments that enhance the built environment – working across all sectors including commercial, industrial, leisure, retail, manufacturing, logistics, heritage and residential.

We offer a fresh approach to MEP, getting involved early, working collaboratively with the design team, highlighting options, guiding design development, and using our expertise to help clients make key decisions.

Most importantly, you’ll find us a lively, good-spirited team, passionate about what we’re doing and enjoying each other’s company – we’ll be sure to give you a warm welcome too! Check out our projects here.

To succeed in this role, we are seeking individuals with:

• Experience working as a Design or Building Services Manager within the building services industry. Having an engineering degree is not a pre-requisite and we welcome candidates from architecture, and project management backgrounds.
• Expert in project management methodologies (PMI / APM / Prince 2 or equivalent is preferred) and proficient in project management tools such as MS Project, Jira, Asana or similar.
• Proven track record of managing projects within building services, ideally with an MEP focus with a confident understanding of the end-to-end design process.
• Confident managing complex, high budget projects with multiple stakeholders and working towards deadlines. The ideal candidate will be highly organised, have exceptional problem-solving skills and be able to manage risk/handle issues efficiently.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with previous experience engaging with clients and key stakeholders.
• Strong attention to detail and ability to prioritise in a fast paced, dynamic environment.
• Whilst you can expect to work across a variety of building services projects, a big growth area for us is data centre projects. Experience managing these projects would be beneficial but is not a pre-requisite for this role – full training will be provided.

What's great about Hydrock, now Stantec:

We are a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy of over 900 staff in 21 offices across the UK. Our driving motivation is to be a ‘Force for Good’, as it is our aim to improve the quality of people’s lives from our employees to our clients, through to the communities we work in and our planet as a whole through the work we do.  

From the buildings that surround you, the roads and bridges you cross, all related to the infrastructure that we create, we aim to offer the most sustainable possibilities to shape the places, communities, and society that we live in through meeting our client’s needs. Through the path we are on to delivering a green future, the result is something that everyone can be proud of. 

Named as Building’s Engineering Consultant of the Year in 2023, we’re known for delivering outstanding sustainable projects for our communities, planet, and society.

Some of these projects have recently received industry accolades, including Cleveland Pools winning the Conservation and Regeneration category at the Construction Excellence South West Awards 2023; Bay Technology Centre named Commercial Project of the Year at the British Construction Industry Awards 2022; YGG Tan-y-Lan picked out in the Integration and Collaborative Working category at Construction Excellence Wales Awards 2022; The Deaf Academy singled out for its Universal Design at the Civic Trust Awards 2022; and Bristol’s iconic waterfront Wapping Wharf Living sweeping up at the Bristol Property Awards.

Take a look at our 2023 end of year film and get a feel for what we’re all about. 

What we can offer you:

• Inspiring and supportive colleagues 
• Reward for progression and hard work 
• An opportunity to develop your soft skills, as well your technical skills
• Competitive starting salary 
• Excellent health benefits 25 days of holiday (buy/sell up to five days), accrue 1 day extra every 2 years, with bonus holidays too!
• An earlier finish on Friday (4pm!) 
• An opportunity to give back: “Day off for good cause” (on a workday) 
• A huge range of flexible benefits, including climate perks and an EV car leasing scheme

A place to feel included

We champion diversity, equity, and inclusion. As an Equal Opportunities Employer, we commit to supporting our employees and ensure we create a safe environment that nurtures you to perform at your best. Offering our people flexibility is an important factor in achieving this aim.  

We consider all application individually with the required qualifications and knowledge without regard to any of the protected characteristics. We would like to provide everyone with a fair selection, assessment, and employment experience so we ask with are made aware of any physical or neurodiverse condition within your application for which appropriate reasonable adjustments can be made by us. 

Looking for the next steps?

Once you have completed your application through our careers site, we aim to review and respond to you as soon as your application’s been reviewed.

If shortlisted, a member of our Talent Acquisition Team will call you for an initial pre-screen by phone (typically 30 minutes) to help us assess your motivations and interest in the position and Hydrock, now Stantec.

If you progress following this telephone pre-screen, you will be invited to attend a formal interview by video conference (Microsoft Teams) or in our offices. 

For the latest updates and news, connect with us on our LinkedIn page!