Head of Facilities Management in London

Job Description

Head of FM

London (Newcastle or Manchester considered) | £90,000 – £110,000 plus bonus, car allowance and share schemes

First things first: this is a resident-facing role before it's anything else.

You're taking on two Facilities Management teams with opposite problems — one that can't hold on to people, one that's too comfortable — and turning them into a single function that's genuinely engaged with the people living in these buildings, not reacting to issues from behind a desk.

If you want a quiet technical brief and a team that already works the way you'd like, this isn't it.

A national UK residential property business is hiring a Head of FM to lead its Facilities Management function across a large, multi-region portfolio spanning Build to Rent, PRS and long-held residential assets.

It's two jobs held together by one person, and the FM half is where you'll spend most of your time.

Facilities Management

You own the strategy, the operating model and the service standards nationally, leading a dispersed team of FM professionals.

• FM strategy, operating model and service standards, with resident experience as the yardstick
• Planned preventative and reactive maintenance
• Procurement, contract management and supplier performance
• Utilities, energy management and heat networks
• Mobilisation of new developments into management
• Input into annual budget planning and service charges — FM is one of the largest areas of operational spend
• The bit that will actually decide whether you succeed

The technical side of this function works.

The teams know their jobs.

What the business needs is someone who can change how those teams operate — and get both of them genuinely focused on the residents living in these buildings, not just the buildings themselves.

The two halves of the estate need opposite things from you.

• One team has been through significant turnover.

It's been rebuilt once and turned over again.

Nobody is entirely sure why.

Diagnosing that honestly and building stability is priority one.

• The other is stable, experienced and long-established — and more traditional in how it works.

Moving it towards a different operating model will take patience and credibility, not authority.

• FM currently runs at arm's length from the buildings, and from the residents in them, while other teams are on site every day.

Getting FM out of the office, visible in the buildings and building real relationships with residents is a stated priority — this is as much about resident experience as it is about the assets.

Whoever gets this right will be judged as much on how residents feel about the service as on the compliance paperwork behind it.

You'll also lead a mix of projects alongside the day job — regeneration works, ESG initiatives and building improvement programmes.

Building & Fire Safety

The statutory side is in good shape.

The Building Safety Act machinery — Safety Cases, Golden Thread, registration, Mandatory Occurrence Reporting, Building Assessment Certificates, Resident Engagement — is already in place and audited, and it's the same story with the Fire Safety Order.

You'll keep it on track, working alongside an existing building safety team, rather than building it from a standing start.

That said, you'll be the named senior operational contact for the Building Safety Regulator, so genuine comfort with the subject matters — you just won't be starting from zero.

The honest bit: this is a senior, regulator-facing role, but the majority of it is people and operations.

If you're drawn here purely for the Building Safety Act side, it may not give you what you're looking for.

• What they're looking for
• FM leadership across a large, dispersed portfolio.

Residential is the obvious fit — BTR, PRS, student or social housing — but strong operational environments transfer well.

Maintenance and FM providers, hospitality and leisure estates all count.

The current postholder came from a holiday park operator and has done the job well.

• Real experience of resident or customer-facing service — you know what good looks like from the resident's side, not just the operational side, and you can get a team to care about that as much as you do.

This is a priority, not a nice-to-have.

• A track record of stabilising an unsettled team, or shifting an established one to a new way of working — this matters as much as anything else in this brief
• Influencing and relationship-building across teams you don't manage
• Strategic input into procurement and annual budget planning, working alongside a procurement function
• A self-starter. Your manager has seven direct reports, is based in Newcastle and is hands-off by default. Nobody will be checking your diary.
• Working knowledge of statutory building and fire safety compliance, with a genuine appetite to build on it — direct Higher Risk Building or Building Safety Regulator experience is a strong plus but not assumed on day one
• The details

London preferred; Newcastle or Manchester considered. £90,000 – £110,000 plus bonus, car allowance, SAYE, Share Incentive Plan and a deferred bonus scheme.

National travel across the portfolio is part of the job.

IOSH, NEBOSH or equivalent is essential.

Level 6 Building Safety Management, CABE, NEBOSH Fire, IFE, MRICS, MIWFM, MIFire E or CMIOSH are all welcome, but none of them replace having done the work.

The process runs to three stages, including a presentation. The business is moving quickly — there is a leadership gap from mid-October, so this is not a slow-burn hire.

Applications are handled confidentially. The employer is named at first conversation.