Design Manager

Role purpose

Design programme and assurance

• Develop, maintain and issue the design programme for all schemes; monitor progress, highlight deviations and implement recovery strategies.
• Coordinate programme interfaces with planning, procurement and construction.
• Ensure design outputs meet National Grid, SSE and Omexom specifications in line with the LCDAE.
• Manage assurance submissions, hold-point reviews and gateway approvals; oversee compliance with procedures, standards and CDM.

Commercial and coordination duties

• Maintain design change registers and logs; manage EWNs, CEs and PMIs and follow contractual obligations.
• Identify design impacts on cost, programme and risk and support cost forecasting.
• Lead design reviews and coordinate multidisciplinary teams and interfaces with clients, OEMs, subcontractors and delivery teams.
• Manage RFIs, TQs and design communications.
• Identify temporary and permanent works design risks, document Principal Designer communications and promote safety by design.

Tender, leadership and improvement

• Support the BUGM and Bid Manager with technical tender input, design methodology, assumptions and risk assessment.
• Ensure tender designs and proposals are robust, compliant and commercially defensible.
• Promote collaboration, innovation and smart design delivery; drive lessons learned and standardisation across projects.
• Support development and mentoring of assistant design managers.

Essential qualifications and experience

• At least 8 years of experience in a related role and relevant qualifications.
• Experience working on high-voltage substation projects, ideally in the UK transmission sector.
• Proven ability to deliver design-related projects with strong attention to detail.
• Commitment to building and developing teams that deliver safely, on time, on budget and to a high quality.
• Internal and external stakeholder management experience.
• Project leadership at management level, delivering projects of varying complexity with multidisciplinary and multicultural teams.
• Familiarity with National Grid processes, standards, assurance pathways or project delivery expectations.

Desired qualifications and experience

• A degree in a relevant engineering discipline, project management, construction management or similar is desired.
• National Grid persons (substations) qualification is desired.
• Experience with energy transmission and distribution specifications, processes and procedures is desired.
• UK energy sector or highly regulated industry experience is desired.
• Membership of a relevant professional institution is desired.

Key interfaces and values