Director of Surveying Services (DoSS) in London

The Role: Reporting into the Senior Leadership Team, the Director of Surveying (DoSS) will provide strategic, technical, and operational leadership of the Surveying function across Marley Risk Consulting (MRC), with a specialist focus on both the claims and underwriting risk management aspects of Latent Defect Insurance (LDI). As an experienced senior Chartered Surveyor, you will be responsible for developing and leading a commercially viable, multi-disciplinary surveying capability that delivers high-quality technical services to support MRC’s claims Underwriting and other businesses. Operating as fee-earning practitioners, the surveying team will uphold the highest professional and ethical standards, enabling services to be offered both internally and to external clients across the wider market. The Director of Surveying will play a pivotal role in shaping and delivering the strategic direction of the business, ensuring technical excellence, regulatory compliance, and value-driven outcomes that support growth, innovation, and reputation across the LDI sector.

Job Type: This role will be a full-time permanent contract (Mon-Fri).

Job Location: This role will be associated with MRC headquarters in Cheltenham but can be a fully remote, hybrid or office based. A presence at site locations will be required and travel will be required.

Key Activities:

• Strategic Leadership
  • Provide strategic direction for the Surveying function, aligned with MRC’s corporate objectives and growth strategy.
  • Contribute to business planning, service development, and operational decision-making.
  • Identify opportunities to expand technical services, enhance market position, and deliver value for money and to provide surveying services to other complementary business sectors.
  • Champion innovation, efficiency, and best practice across surveying activities.
• People Leadership
  • Build and develop a multi-disciplinary team of surveyors and technical specialists.
  • Ensure effective capacity and resource planning, skills development, and succession planning.
  • Support professional development, RICS CPD compliance, and pathways to chartership.
  • Drive professional excellence and continuous improvement across the service accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and professional excellence.
• Professional and Technical
  • Act as MRC’s lead professional for surveying practice, ensuring compliance with RICS Rules of Conduct (2022) and all relevant professional standards.
  • Ensure appropriate governance, quality assurance, and risk management frameworks are in place.
  • Oversee technical standards for reporting, expert opinion, causation analysis, and defect investigations within the LDI claims environment.
  • Promote and embed ethical behaviour, professional integrity, and competence across the surveying function.
  • Ensure effective management of conflicts of interest, complaints handling, and professional indemnity consideration.
• Service Leadership
  • Lead and manage the delivery of surveying services supporting LDI claims, insurance risk, and dispute-related matters.
  • Provide oversight of complex, high-risk, or high-value claims and technical referrals.
  • Ensure services are delivered to agreed quality, cost, and time objectives.
  • Maintain consistency, accuracy, and defensibility of professional advice provided to insurers, clients, and legal stakeholders.
  • Manage external professional partner and contractor relationships.
• Commercial Leadership
  • Develop and manage a commercial, fee-earning surveying model aligned to business needs and market demand.
  • Responsibility for financial performance, budgets, resource planning, and cost control.
  • Support bid development, pricing strategies, and client proposals.
  • Drive value for money through effective resourcing, performance management, and procurement of external consultants where required.
• Stakeholder Management
  • Build and maintain strong working relationships across the business, parent company and clients.
  • Drive profitable growth supporting business development opportunities and propositions.
  • Represent the business externally as a senior technical authority within the LDI and insurance sector.
  • Support dispute resolution, expert engagement and client assurance where required.
• Other Duties
  • Perform additional tasks as reasonably required by the business.

Experience required:

• At least 10 years practical surveying experience.
• Strong technical knowledge of building pathology, defects, and causation in the context of construction and insurance claim.
• Significant senior leadership experience within surveying, insurance, claims, risk, and/or construction environment.
• Experience of Latent Defect Insurance (LDI) construction warranties or complex insurance claims.
• Management of fee earning services with commercially focussed technical teams.
• Demonstrable success in building and developing high performing teams.

Desired Skills and Competencies:

• Ethics, integrity, and professionalism.
• Strategic leadership and commercial acumen.
• Technical authority and judgement.
• Risk management and quality assurance.
• Client focus and stakeholder confidence.
• People leadership and talent development.
• Driving value for money and sustainable growth.
• Attention to detail.
• Expert verbal and written communication skills.

Qualifications required:

• Chartered Surveyor (MRISS or MRICS).
• Degree (Construction, Building Surveying or similar).
• Professional qualifications or certification e.g. CII, CILA.

Benefits:

• Enhanced company pension.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Tech scheme.
• Life insurance (following successful completion of probationary period).
• Private medical insurance (following successful completion of probationary period).
• Flexible working.
• Employee assistance programme.
• Free gym membership.