Assistant Land and Development Manager in Manchester

Willmott Dixon are looking to expand our national development solutions team and have an exciting new opportunity for an Assistant Development Manager to focus on assisting our Regional Head of Land and Development in progressing a strong pipeline of work across our North region.

With over five years of successfully partnering with public sector customers across a variety of sectors, our main aim now is to further develop our order book of development led opportunities. You will report to our Regional Head of Land and Development and support them in both seeking new work and progressing an existing pipeline of developments mainly secured through public sector engagements and partnering.

You will be based in the North of England (Manchester and the North West, Yorkshire and the North East), but as the role could involve working on national projects you should be prepared to travel. Work life balance is important to us and as our team are national, hybrid working is key to allow you to split your time between home, our offices (Oldham, Leeds and Gateshead) as well as visiting sites/customers.

Willmott Dixon is driven by quality and customer service and to this day we remain family owned and take pride in our core values. We are passionate about people and have a real focus and drive around continuous development.

The key responsibilities will include:

• Provide support to our Regional Heads of Land and Development in helping move development projects from feasibility to ‘construction ready’. This would include undertaking research, assisting in the writing of feasibility studies, commissioning and managing the work of sub-consultants.
• Assist in bidding and winning future work through development of proposals and commercial structures.
• Assist in representing Willmott Dixon development solutions publicly and encourage/develop new relationships to grow the team and our reputation.
• Collaborate with and support other regional development managers to grow their pipeline, including supporting on business development, bids, tenders, attending events etc.
• Assist in building and maintaining strong relationships with customers, consultants, funders and other stakeholders to deliver projects to site and successful outcomes for our customers.
• Create and maintain development appraisals on schemes, reporting internally and externally as required.
• Work closely with regional preconstruction teams to establish deliverable solutions which achieve relevant margin requirements.
• Support relevant consultant relationships on projects.
• Identify and mitigate risks/opportunities and develop contingency plans to eliminate risk and optimise returns to ensure that projects evolve to meet and better the financial and programme required.

Essential criteria:

• High levels of personal energy and comfortable operating in a complex, fast paced environment with the ability to work both independently and as part of a passionate dynamic team.
• Tenacity and persistence to resolve challenging issues.
• Ability to challenge the status quo but knowing how to manage change to minimise disruption.
• Developer or construction side project management experience, including the development and management of project programmes, reporting progress against these, instructing multi-disciplinary teams to deliver against programme objectives, and the development and maintenance of project management tools (e.g. risk register, issues log, budget and resourcing plans).
• Assisting the senior team to prepare for, manage and record key client meetings.
• A passion to assist in developing out and identifying opportunities, push boundaries and engage strategically to help the team and customers deliver their outcomes.
• Commercial acumen in developing and reporting on commercial appraisals and financial modelling.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills including report writing, presenting and pitching ideas. IT proficient including MS Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Teams and appraisal software.

Desirable criteria:

• Mixed use development experience (town centre, retail, leisure, community, office and residential).
• Knowledge of public partnering contractual arrangements (development agreements, partnership agreements, JV’s etc).
• Knowledge of funding routes (either private funding or public sector grant funding).
• Experience of working with or for Local Authorities.

In return we offer a competitive salary in addition to a comprehensive benefits package including a company pension scheme, green company car allowance, life assurance, private medical cover, incentive/bonus schemes, employee trade discounts, and many more. We offer you a bright future, one where you will have the opportunity to develop your career. We are a supportive, growing team in an exciting area supported by a larger forward-thinking company, who recognise and reward your achievements.

We’re an open minded team and business and we embrace diversity in the workplace. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds. Even if you don’t feel like you meet 100% of our requirements we encourage you to get in touch. We value our people and are building a team who share our values. Your skills, experience and background may be just what we need. As an equal opportunity employer, we do not discriminate and are committed to creating an inclusive and successful team which values our people as our biggest attribute.