Commercial Operations Manager – Sustainability

Buro Happold group.; Bath, London, Leeds, Manchester, City of Edinburgh; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Buro Happold is looking for a Commercial Operations Manager to join their Sustainability Unit. This role involves delivering strategic objectives and overseeing project financials to support business growth and efficiency. As a key leader, you will manage resources effectively and contribute to the unit's operational success, collaborating with various stakeholders.

Benefits

Flexible working patterns

Diversity and inclusion initiatives

Support for marginalised groups

Qualifications

• Demonstrated leadership and credibility in a managerial role.
• Excellent organisational and communication skills.
• Ability to manage financials and develop business strategies.

Responsibilities

• Delivering strategic objectives for the sustainability unit.
• Overseeing project finances and evaluating unit performance against KPIs.
• Supporting resourcing and addressing operational issues within the unit.

Skills

Organisational Skills

Leadership

Communication

Strategic Thinking

Education

Degree in relevant field

Job description

Commercial Operations Manager – Sustainability

Thrive on openness, respect, and collaboration? Good. Us too. Join as our new Commercial Operations Manager.

The Sustainability Unit Lead has ultimate accountability and executive responsibility for the success of the Sustainability teams which sit in BH UK. It is intended that the Unit Lead focusses on providing executive leadership to deliver the vision and strategy relating to the regional goals of the wider BH UK business.

In support of this, the Unit Lead will be assisted by the Commercial Operations Manager who will focus on project finance and resourcing operational activities within the unit to make sure the business objectives of the sustainability discipline unit are met efficiently and effectively.

The duties of the Unit Lead are:

• Providing leadership and development of capability and capacity of the Sustainability Unit
• Delivering of business strategy and objectives for the region to promote growth and profitability
• Accountability to unify the UK business, delivering strong product units and mechanisms to grow our multi-disciplinary engineering design, expand our strategic consultancy business and build strong capability in the UK market
• Participation and active support of the regional executive team, contributing with and fully engaging with the regional strategy
• Oversight of strategy for each individual Sustainability team, and development and implementation of strategy for the Sustainability Unit as a whole
• Full profit and loss (P&L) accountability for the projects within the Sustainability Business Unit portfolio
• Line management of the Sustainability Operations Director
• Line management of the Sustainability Partners
• Development of an effective Business Development strategy for the Business Discipline within the assigned portfolio in order to foster product enhancement, innovation and competitive market positioning in accordance with the regional strategy

The supporting duties delivered by the Commercial Operations Manager will be:

Commercial

• Review the monthly accounts. Develop and implement strategies/working practice/procedures to ensure that the unit meets its business performance objectives.
• Evaluate the units performance by gathering data, analysis and evaluation of performance against KPI’s.
• Attend and input into monthly PD reviews for PD account holders in the discipline unit (also significant JL account holders) to monitor/improve the financial health of projects.
• Monitor and review investment spend within the discipline unit.
• Monitor, review and support the creation of budget figures for unit overheads

Resource

• Support the review of resourcing within the unit. Develop and implement strategies/working practice/procedures to ensure that the unit meets its utilisation performance objectives.
• Meet with the sub-group/resource pool leads to discuss and assist in resolving issues in relation to the operation of the unit including pipeline, resourcing, recruiting, work allocation etc. across the sub units within the discipline unit
• Assist with identification of additional resource requirements and identify potential recruitment needs

Management

• Identify operational support requirements for the business unit and provide a leadership interface between the discipline unit and operational support functions such as finance, POM support etc.

Other

• Maintain working relationships with directors within the discipline unit, fully engaging with the sustainability unit strategy.

Your next role:

The Sustainability commercial operations manager will work with the Unit Lead and receive direction on aspirations for business strategy and performance, and will work relatively autonomously within the Sustainability Unit to deliver these aspirations.

The Sustainability operations manager will have a keen eye on the pipeline, RUBO and availability of resource in each of the Sustainability sub-teams and will be a good collaborator and organiser of resource allocation for projects.

You will be part of the Sustainability discipline leadership team (LT) including attendance at monthly LT meetings, creating content, identifying agenda topics and leading sessions as required in support of achieving your objectives.

Key Interfaces:

• Sustainability Directors and sub group leaders - meet as required to discuss operational issues, resolve problems, and make decisions
• Sustainability POM team

Your skills and experience:

• Able to deliver operational guidance and decision making in a way which is judged to be fair and equitable, maintaining engagement within the Sustainability community as far as is practicable
• Excellent organisational skills
• Ability to prioritise issues, including the cyclical varying of focus from macro to micro, depending on the needs of individual teams and situations
• Must be a highly credible and respected leader of people – able to relate and inspire
• Communication across various mediums is critical – conveying information in a way which results in engagement and action. This can include face-to-face discussions, emails, presentations and video conferencing
• Able to demonstrate consideration of strategy and (critically) the dissemination of such in a way which provides clear and tangible direction for the teams, resulting in actionable behaviours

A place for everyone

Buro Happold values an individual's flexible approaches to working patterns as an important part of how you work and achieve balance. We welcome applications from those who are seeking flexibility in their careers.

Our exceptional portfolio of projects is the result of the diversity of thought, identities, backgrounds, and experiences that shape us. Appreciating each other’s differences is key, we want employees to feel they don’t have to mask elements of their identity to thrive.

We are working to change the lack of representation of marginalised groups in the built environment. We are particularly keen to hear from anyone who feels they are underrepresented in the industry. We have much to learn from one another.Embracing differences allows us to develop the most innovative and elegant solutions.

Please let us know if there are any adjustments we could make to the application process to make it easier and more comfortable for you. Contact [e-mail] so we can work with you to support you throughout your application.

Commercial Operations Manager – Sustainability

• Salary Competitive
• Frequency Annual
• Job Reference burohappold/TP/903/1175
• Contract Type Permanent
• Closing Date 17 June, 2025
• Job Category Sustainability
• Location Bath;London;Leeds;Manchester;Edinburgh, United Kingdom