Head of Disciplines in Manchester

We are excited to announce a leadership opportunity to join CEL - Costain’s in-house Engineering & Design Services team. This role will oversee and lead the Mechanical, Electrical, Piping, and Control & Instrumentation disciplines supporting secured frameworks and confirmed demand, leveraging Costain’s robust pipeline of work across various sectors.

This high profile leadership position requires a proven technical background and experience in managing large design teams. The ideal applicant will have a proven track record of delivering complex projects from a design perspective and should possess experience with major engineering design consultants to understand pricing and professional services management.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as the primary Engineering Services contact for Costain’s Mechanical, Piping, Electrical and C&I disciplines, liaising with other Engineering Services teams, Costain sector project delivery teams, group functions as well as external supply chain partners.
• Effectively communicate with key project stakeholders on design progress, challenges, risks and outcomes to ensure alignment and manage expectations.
• Accurately forecast future team resource needs, ensuring effective utilisation of design resources and recruitment to meet demand.
• Ensure the collective team skillsets and deployed resources accurately align with current and future project demands and complexity.
• Lead the successful delivery of mechanical, piping, electrical, controls & instrumentation engineering services across all contracts, ensuring scope and service requirements, budgets and programmes are clearly defined and adhered to.
• Ensure the smooth transition between design phases, monitoring progress against budget and programme, and clear reporting of this to senior management, sectors and clients.
• Ensure the delivery of technically compliant and quality-controlled designs which meet scope requirements, ensuring all necessary technical and regulatory assurance activities have been undertaken across the program lifecycle.
• Proactively assist in resolving complex technical and delivery issues where identified.
• Collaborate strategically with Costain’s Sectors in the pursuit of relevant opportunities as an engineering subject matter expert, developing best in class value propositions and winning bids to secure a strong future pipeline of work aligned with Costain’s growth ambitions.
• Facilitate the capturing and clear communication of technical risks and opportunities to all stakeholders.
• Oversee the effective management of design change, applying a systematic challenge to minimise unnecessary scope variation.
• Act as a visible leader in developing a design delivery culture that emphasises ownership and accountability.
• Embed a structured approach to lessons learned and apply continuous improvement principles to all aspects of engineering services.

Knowledge, Skills, and Experience:

• A background in managing the delivery of multi-disciplinary engineering teams on complex infrastructure projects across the programme lifecycle.
• Experience in successfully managing the delivery of complex engineering scopes to budget and programme.
• Demonstratable experience in effective change management and leading value engineering exercises.
• A background in managing engineering teams, responsible for managing workload, resource demand and skillsets.
• Significant engineering design experience within a relevant engineering discipline.
• Experience with managing 3rd party designers / sub-contractors, including technical approvals, compliance with customer specifications and resource competency.
• Experienced technical manager capable of reviewing technical quality and compliance of design deliverables; understanding of key technical concepts across a range of engineering design disciplines.
• Demonstratable record of promoting safety in design, lean design concepts, sustainable practices or digital innovations.

Qualifications:

• Chartered Engineer (ICE, iMechE, iStructE, IET, CIOB, CIHT, other).

Costain helps to improve people’s lives with integrated, leading edge, smart infrastructure solutions across the UK’s energy, water, transportation and defence markets. Our vision is to be the UK’s leading smart infrastructure solutions company.