Head of Estates Maintenance & Compliance in Sidcup

Head of Estates Maintenance & Compliance

Band 8c

Main area Corporate Grade Band 8c Contract Permanent Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week Job ref 277-8367277-CORP

Site Queen Mary's Hospital Town Sidcup Salary £85,641 - £97,746 pa inc Salary period Yearly Closing 20/11/2026 23:59 Interview date 04/12/2026

Job overview

This is a new leadership role to deliver the estates maintenance and compliance requirements across the Trust’s large and dispersed mental health and community health service Estate. The post holder will be the specialist lead responsible for ensuring our estates maintenance services support a safe and compliant estate. They will bring specialist skills and expertise to improve delivery of the Trust’s buildings performance and ensure the Trust operates within the defined Estates operations budget to support the achievement of Living Within Our Means cost saving targets.

Main duties of the job

The postholder will be expected to lead complex Estates operations and manage by bringing strong skills and judgement to meet objectives around the optimisation and effectiveness of the Trust Estate. They will be expected to liaise with a wide variety of Trust staff, at all levels, and external organisations and provide specialist knowledge to ensure the effective service delivery of those. Particularly working with the Heads of Facilities, Energy Management and Capital to ensure a cohesive approach to estate management.

Working for our organisation

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.
We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:

• We Listen
• We Care

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

This is a new leadership role to deliver the estates maintenance and compliance requirements across the Trust’s large and dispersed mental health and community health service Estate. The post holder will be the specialist lead responsible for ensuring our estates maintenance services support a safe and compliant estate. They will bring specialist skills and expertise to improve delivery of the Trust’s buildings performance and ensure the Trust operates within the defined Estates operations budget to support the achievement of Living Within Our Means cost saving targets.

The postholder will be expected to lead complex Estates operations and manage by bringing strong skills and judgement to meet objectives around the optimisation and effectiveness of the Trust Estate. They will be expected to liaise with a wide variety of Trust staff, at all levels, and external organisations and provide specialist knowledge to ensure the effective service delivery of those. Particularly working with the Heads of Facilities, Energy Management and Capital to ensure a cohesive approach to estate management.

They will produce regular reports for the Chief Estates Officer and Executive Team and Board Committees as required. They will analyse complex Estates technical information and present strong cases to secure funding where available and deemed necessary for the implementation of estates related initiatives, as well as the production of Trust Policies supporting the vision and delivery for the Trust Estate.

The post holder is also responsible for providing strategic direction in estates maintenance and compliance to support delivery of the Trust’s Estates Strategy and targets.

This will require the postholder to:

Drive the strategy for supporting and ensuring alignment of consistent and compliant standards across all Trust Estates services.

Be responsible to the Chief Estates Officer and to act as their deputy as required across Estates services, ensuring that there is an effective and efficient Estates maintenance and compliance service across the Trust.

Be professionally accountable and take lead Responsible Officer role for the Trust’s estate, ensuring the applicable statutory, mandatory and compliance standards, Trust policy requirements and best practice codes are implemented and maintained in response to legal obligations, professional advice and NHS guidance. Develop and maintain an effective and robust audit and reporting process to demonstrate compliance with the above.

Provide professional leadership and advice on the Trust’s estate to other estates staff and senior managers of the Trust.

Take the lead role in relation to the performance improvement and monitoring of the Estates maintenance services within the Trust and with external partners, ensuring that requirements are met and delivered in a timely and efficient manner within cost, time and quality

Take responsibility for developing and maintaining a wide range of external relationships, notably local authorities, Trust contractors, Hard FM Providers and others.

Manage and deliver continued operational development of the Estates maintenance team, provide detailed professional & technical advice and guidance to Trust staff, contractors and consultants on issues that may be complex and non-routine for energy management, engineering plant and equipment and critical patient safety systems, infrastructure and services

Provide engineering and technical support on sustainability issues, sustainable development and the carbon reduction and energy management plan.

Lead on the issues related to maintenance of existing physical assets. Ensure the risk register /asset register and backlog maintenance register are populated with realistic, accurate and up to date information and lead on the reduction of Estates related risks. Asset condition assessment and capital planning and bidding processes are fundamental aspects of this role.

Take a proactive role within project teams and project boards so as to contribute to the development and implementation of the Trust’s overall, and Estates, and Facilities strategies.

Manage and be responsible for managing planed and reactive maintenance works and small projects, ensuring works are delivered in a timely and best value manner, in line with Trust SFI’s and schemes of delegation. Manage a significant estates budget for maintenance repairs ensuring expenditure decisions provide value for money outcomes and compliance with the Trust SFI’s.

Monitor, maintain and update Trust policies that are ‘owned’ by the Estates team, whether delivered directly or through contracted or sub-contracted services of the Estates and Facilities team – including but not limited to water quality management, medical gases, pneumatic tube systems, contractor management and permit to work processes

Lead and manage the Estates & Facilities Compliance Team to ensure that there is effective compliance and asset management in aspects of Estates & Facilities including installations, services, systems and work activities.

Manage the Estate on all sites in a safe condition in accordance with Statutory Obligations, Codes of Practice, Health Technical Memoranda and Department of Health Guidelines.

Produce detailed reports for the Estates & Facilities department, Trust Executive Team, Board sub committees as required

Lead and direct the compliance team so that systems are in place and updated and reports provided as required to evidence effective compliance and asset management.

Meet all statutory and legislative requirements in relation to Estates & Facilities compliance and ensure the provision of key information to external regulatory bodies as required.

Manage commercial and contractual discussions in a professional manner.

Person specification

• Management qualification or demonstrable experience in management position within the estates and facilities domain within NHS or comparable complex organisation setting
• Highly specialist knowledge across all estates and facilities with practical experience
• Membership of a professional Estates, Engineering or FM Chartered organisation
• Extensive knowledge of NHS healthcare buildings, systems and management
• Experienced and qualified Appointed Person [AP] capacity for one of the following: Medical Gases, Legionella, HV or LV. Water systems
• Proven record of success, in managing operational change while also developing and maintaining high standards of quality
• Significant experience of managing a professional team and legislation in managing property in a healthcare setting
• Experience of effective management of budgets
• Theoretical and practicable knowledge in the use of building management systems and Auto Computer Aided Design [AutoCAD]

We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace that welcomes and supports individuals of all abilities. We would encourage you to be open about your needs so we can work with you to design a comfortable and accessible interview experience. Any information you provide regarding a disability or a need for adjustments will be treated in confidence and will only be shared with colleagues who are supporting this request.

If you require any adjustments to participate fully in the interview process, please let us know by adding the relevant details when scheduling your preferred interview date and time. Please feel free to contact the appointing manager to discuss your needs.

If you have declared you are part of the armed forces community, you may be asked to provide evidence during the recruitment process. If you misrepresent this information, your offer may be withdrawn. For Armed Forces specific support, see our webpage: https://oxleas.nhs.uk/armed-forces-community/

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

If you choose to use AI or other tools to assist in writing your application, it's essential to personalise this information, particularly your supporting information section. While AI can help streamline the writing process, these tools cannot fully grasp the context or requirements of the job you’re applying for. There is also a risk that it can generate false or misleading information. AI-generated job applications can often be generic, impersonal and may not accurately reflect your qualifications, knowledge, skills, and experiences. It is crucial that you personalise your supporting statement by articulating these in your unique voice. Relying solely on AI to write your application or supporting information section is not advocated by Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust and could negatively impact your chances of success in the application process.

We monitor applications for any behaviour that could create an unfair advantage, and we check all references carefully. You are likely to be tested on your experience at interview, so be honest and make sure all the information in your application is correct. Please note that the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is prohibited during the interview process.