Project Director

Mercury; Oxford; On-site; GBP 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercury in Oxford seeks a Project Director to lead and coordinate all aspects of complex engineering and construction projects, ensuring safety, quality and on-time delivery.

You will manage cross-functional teams, interface with clients, drive digital delivery, and deliver regular reporting using dashboards and Power BI.

Essential criteria include an engineering degree or trade qualification, 10+ years in large projects, and strong leadership and communication skills.

Qualifications

• Engineering degree or recognised trade qualification is required.
• 10+ years’ experience managing large construction projects as a General Contractor is essential.
• Thorough knowledge of Civil, Structural and Architectural packages is required.

Responsibilities

• Schedule and chair weekly meetings with the team, Design team and Client.
• Lead weekly audits and address open items with the team.
• Champion Mercury's EHS culture with safety leadership activities.
• Ensure Mercury Procedures are reviewed and followed on the project.
• Attend Client meetings and develop executive-level client relationships.
• Provide training and development opportunities for project staff and subcontractors.
• Review weekly project progress and issue the Project Report.
• Coordinate lookaheads and planning for labour productivity and programme certainty.
• Provide leadership across construction, commercial, planning, design, QA/QC, commissioning and EHS.

Skills

Project management

Leadership

Stakeholder management

EHS leadership

Digital delivery

Education

Engineering Degree or recognised trade qualification

Tools

Power BI reporting

BIM

Project planning tools

Job description

Project Director, Oxford, UK
Mercury is the European leader in construction solutions.
We build and manage complex engineering & construction projects for the world’s leading corporations. Our solutions help deliver technologies and life changing advancements that connect people, communities and businesses, giving them the power to achieve incredible things. Our people have the courage to be innovative. Their determination and sharp focus enable us to deliver with certainty, time and time again.
We deliver our clients’ visions through leading edge construction solutions across multiple sectors, including: Enterprise Data Centres, Advanced Technology & Life Sciences, Hyperscale Data Centres, Fire Protection.
At Mercury, it is our duty to encourage and back our people to realise their vision of themselves. We place them at the heart of what we do, providing challenging opportunities to develop within a great team in a supportive environment that allows them to reach their full potential.

Scope Of The Role

Reporting to the BU Management and Operations Director this person will be a self-starter working on their own initiative. They will be responsible for the management and co-ordination all aspects of the Project as they relate to the project scope of work.
Leading and managing the Project Team and interfacing with the Client Team this person will set clear direction and expectations for the Safe, on time, on budget delivery of the fully integrated build. The core project management team, of which you are a key part, will create the vision; provide leadership; set targets; create processes and procedures; manage the Quality and ensure adherence to all EHS requirements across all projects.

Responsibilities Of The Role

Weekly Meetings

• Schedule and chair meeting with your team, the Design team, and the Client.
• Follow up and ensure a timely close out of any outstanding items.
• Attend and actively contribute to EHS and QA meetings.
• Attend Morning Whiteboard and Evening Schedule meetings.
• Chair and drive weekly Digital Collaborative Planning (DCP) sessions across all disciplines, ensuring clear identification of constraints, commitments, critical path activities and recovery actions.
• Review project KPIs weekly and implement mitigation actions where performance trends fall below project targets.
• Lead programme recovery workshops where required to maintain project milestones and client commitments.

Weekly Audits

• Implement Mercury Project Audit Plan.
• Review weekly Project Audits and address open items with your team.
• Discuss findings and trends with your Construction Manager, your team and the BU Leads.
• Ensure Audit findings are clearly communicated to all stakeholders.
• Drive closure of all open Audit findings.
• Ensure audit performance metrics are reviewed and reported monthly, identifying recurring trends and implementing corrective actions.

EHS Alerts

• Ensure that all EHS alerts are communicated effectively.
• Engage in campaigns being run to reflect the alerts – TBTs, Stand-downs, Demonstrations.
• Ensure workforce participation.
• Champion Mercury's Zero Harm culture by leading visible safety leadership activities and ensuring proactive risk management across all project activities.
• Ensure EHS performance KPIs are achieved and continuously improved.

Mercury Procedures

• Ensure Mercury Procedures are in place and being adhered to on your project.
• Ensure you and your team have fully reviewed and understand the Project specifications and documentation.
• Plan procurement and ensure engineering is developed to meet deadlines.
• Ensure all Material Take-Offs are completed to compare with Sub-Contractor pricing returns.
• Review quality of output and foster continuous improvement.
• Periodic attendance at planned meetings, TBTs, SLTs and DABS.
• Ensure full compliance with Mercury Digital Delivery, BIM, Commissioning and Project Control procedures.
• Drive adoption of digital tools, dashboards and Power BI reporting to improve project visibility and decision making.

Client Meetings

• Attend Client meetings.
• Push strong QEHS approach with Client.
• Identify improvement opportunities.
• Share Mercury reports highlighting positives and negatives.
• Identify and communicate where Client approach needs change.
• Develop and maintain executive-level client relationships, acting as the primary escalation point for project delivery matters.
• Lead strategic discussions with the client on programme, commercial, risk and delivery performance.

Training

• Make training available to your team and your Sub-contractors.
• Set standards for training requirements for Mercury and Sub-Contractor staff.
• Develop succession planning and mentorship programmes for key project leadership positions.
• Promote continuous professional development and digital capability across project teams.

Project Weekly Report

• Review weekly progress update with the Project Planner and implement strategies to ensure project remains on track.
• Issue Project Report.
• Review leading and lagging KPIs and communicate corrective actions to the project team.
• Provide monthly executive reports covering programme, commercial, safety, quality, procurement, risk and client satisfaction performance.

Weekly Planner

• Use the project lookaheads to drive the project.
• Co-ordinate with the various project teams to ensure your dates can be achieved.
• Sub-contractor Meetings.
• Safety Walks.
• Audits.
• Client Interface.
• Drive Digital Collaborative Planning processes to improve labour productivity, workface planning and programme certainty.
• Ensure all project constraints are identified, assigned and tracked to closure through the collaborative planning process.

Project Team Management

• Guide and assist your project team.
• Align your expectations with Project requirements.
• Ensure your expectations are clearly understood.
• Empower your Construction Manager to set up a functional site.
• Set clear expectations and track against KPIs.
• Provide leadership and strategic direction to all project functions including Construction, Commercial, Planning, Design, QA/QC, Commissioning and EHS.
• Establish a high-performance culture focused on accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement.
• Ensure effective resource planning and succession planning across the project lifecycle.
• All other duties associated with this role.

The Project Director shall be accountable for achieving and reporting on the following project KPIs:

• Safety Performance: Recordable Incident Rate (RIR), SOR completion and close-out, Audit performance scores, EHS observations and actions closed out
• Quality Performance: Snag closure rate, Quality audit scores, Rework reduction and First-time pass rate.
• Programme Performance: Milestone achievement, Schedule Performance Index (SPI), Look-ahead plan reliability and Collaborative Planning commitment reliability
• Commercial Performance: Budget adherence, Margin protection, Change management performance and Cost forecasting accuracy.
• Digital Delivery Performance: BIM compliance, Digital Collaborative Planning participation, Dashboard reporting compliance, Data quality and reporting accuracy
• Client Performance: Client satisfaction, Escalation management, Handover performance and Defect-free completion.

Essential Criteria For The Role

• Engineering Degree or recognised trade qualification
• 10+ years’ experience of managing large construction projects as a General Contractor.
• Thorough knowledge of Civil, Structural and Architectural packages
• Flexibility in working patterns where necessary.
• Ability to efficiently manage a team by setting expectations, delegation, and review.
• Strong communication & computer skills,
• Ability to work on own initiative and possess strong interpersonal and communications skills.
• Close attention to detail
• Good team-working skills

Mercury is an equal opportunities employer.