Design Manager

At HDR, our employee-owners are fully engaged in creating a welcoming environment where each of us is valued and respected, a place where everyone is empowered to bring their authentic selves and novel ideas to work every day. As we work to weave diversity, equity, and inclusion into our work and foster a sense of belonging throughout the company and within our communities, we constantly ask ourselves: What is our impact on the world?

About You

Are you someone with experience across a range of construction projects, with the ability to manage and motivate a team and demonstrate good leadership qualities? Do you have experience of managing design projects to time, cost and quality objectives and are you familiar with programming and earned value techniques? Are you customer focused with excellent client relationship management skills? If so, we wish to hear from you.

As a Design Manager, you will be part of an organisation that is 100-percent employee owned, that supports and creates many opportunities for you to advance, succeed and fulfil your career aspirations.

Primary Objective

• The successful delivery of the project to agreed targets, e.g. programme, budget and quality.
• Identifying and agreeing project objectives with the Design Director and developing a strategy for achieving these.
• Identifying, escalating and managing any matters that could pose a potential contractual/commercial risk to the Project Director (PD) at the earliest opportunity.
• Leading the project team – building, motivating, maintaining, coaching, guiding and developing the team; including providing regular feedback to all team members.
• Ensure safety is prioritised throughout delivery.
• Facilitating communication, co-ordination and information flow with the Client and within the project team, including any subcontractors and partners.
• Assembling and owning the project delivery programme and delivery plans.
• Closing out the project on completion, updating market information, ensuring that lessons learnt are captured and disseminated internally and ensuring that a Client Satisfaction survey is initiated.
• Be responsible for providing a safe working culture within project teams and promoting safety.
• Be key in delivering our client’s requirements.
• Deliver complex projects successfully within budget and on schedule.
• Foster a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous improvement.
• Be committed to supporting your team to ensure a high-quality service in delivery.
• Show leadership of your team of diverse individuals, actively encouraging new ways of thinking to provide an agile delivery environment.
• Understand your clients’ requirements and the impact of your projects success factors, then developing a schedule and delivery plan to ensure success.
• Provide a proactive risk identification and mitigation environment that allows for innovation and creative agile delivery.

Responsibilities

In the role of Design Manager, we\’ll count on you to:

• Work on large scale projects with significant responsibility.
• Plan and keep track of documentation by putting in place appropriate management and assurance controls for design certainty. Being able to manage your time and the wider team\’s time effectively and efficiently.
• Ensure clear communication through collaborating effectively with both internal HDR teams and external stakeholders to support the delivery of projects.
• Facilitate and lead any discussions in Design Team Meetings (DTMs), taking clear and concise minutes and ensuring timely completion of actions by the design team.
• Ensure project management processes are consistently improved and implemented, e.g. change control. Coordinating relevant disciplines through target led workshops, enabling critical design issues to be resolved in a timely manner.
• Deal with RFIs, early warnings, and general communications to reduce project risk and ensure a successful project delivery.
• Analyse, process, and respond to design transmittals consisting of drawings, specifications, reports, and other project related documents.
• Review and evaluate quotations to ensure they align with the project’s scope, budget and client requirements.
• Manage changes and delays that have affected the project and ensuring these are resolved or mitigated accordingly.
• Keep track of meeting discussions through making notes, ensuring accurate documentation of discussions, decisions and actions for future reference.
• Update the design delivery programme, resources, and instructions. Have a thorough understanding of project scope and design responsibility.
• Itemise scope of services, client briefing schedules, documentation and regular assessment against industry standards to help ensure a better set of deliverables.
• Instigate efficiency, appropriate use of innovation, buildability whilst factoring the different design stages with the wider design team.
• Understand the design process, roles and responsibilities and be able to coordinate across all disciplines internal and external, ensuring quality and add overall value to the project.
• Multiple package delivery responsibility and team management, reporting to the Lead Design Delivery Manager.

Preferred Qualifications

• Minimum 8 years experience working within a design consultancy.
• Technical Design Experience with Structural Engineering is essential.
• Contract management experience and/or accreditations would be an advantage.
• Experience of working in major projects with proven Client-side project delivery (design or construction).
• Experience with clients in a design consultancy environment.
• Ability to develop and manage customer and stakeholder relationships, through effective listening and influencing skills.
• Naturally curious, solution focused and responsive to client problems.
• Experience of delivering value-plus/cross selling of services.
• Where appropriate, prior compliance with appropriate security clearance levels would be an advantage.
• Enthusiasm to solve problems and enjoy working as part of a large multi-national company.
• Worked in multi-disciplinary teams, co-ordinating and supporting junior Staff.
• A proactive and keenness to take ownership of Client relationships and contribute to the growth of our business.
• Be a great communicator, maintaining relationships with your client, your team and the organisation.
• Proven project management experience across a range of projects in a multi-disciplinary environment.
• A good understanding of current health, safety and welfare legislation.
• Excellent knowledge of the technical work undertaken in the Water sector.
• The ability to operate autonomously without authority.
• Proven ability of working under a range of contract forms, in particular NEC3/4.
• Demonstrable knowledge of undertaking earned value analysis on projects.
• Demonstrable knowledge of writing project quality and delivery plans.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor\’s degree in Engineering.
• 7 years related experience.
• A minimum of 2 years project management experience.
• MS Office and MS Project experience is required (Access experience would be a plus).
• Demonstrated leadership skills.
• An attitude and commitment to being an active participant of our employee-owned culture is a must.

What We Believe
HDR is our company. Together, we build on each other\’s life experiences and perspectives to make great things possible every day. This shapes our collaborative culture, encourages organizational trust and connects us closer to the clients and communities we serve.

Our Commitment
As employee owners, we all have a role in creating an inclusive environment where each of us is welcomed, valued, respected and empowered to bring our authentic selves to work every day.

Our eight Employee Network Groups (Asian Pacific, Black, Hispanic/Latino(a), LGBTQ+, People with Disabilities, Veterans, Women, Young Professionals) help create a sense of belonging and foster a supportive environment where everyone is empowered to engage and contribute. Each group has an executive sponsor and is open to all employees.

Primary Location

United Kingdom-England-London

Schedule

Full-time

Employee Status

Regular

Business Class: Building Structural

Job Posting

Apr 8, 2025

At HDR, we are committed to the principles of employment equity.

We are an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer.
We consider all qualified applicants, regardless of criminal histories, arrest and conviction records.

Ready to learn more? Let\’s work together to make great things possible.

We design solutions to the world\’s greatest challenges. We\’re always looking for great talent to join our global teams.

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