Senior Design Manager

Kier Group; Woking; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Kier Group in Surrey is seeking a Senior Design Manager to join the Thames Water Capital Frameworks team based in Hogsmill, Surrey. You’ll lead design teams, manage consultants and clients, and drive value while meeting regulatory commitments.

The role emphasizes concept and detailed design for water infrastructure projects, with a focus on quality, safety, and continuous improvement. 45 hours per week with some flexibility; a full driving licence is required.

Qualifications

• Degree-qualified engineer, preferably chartered, with water sector experience.
• Experience as Design Manager or Principal Engineer in water/wastewater.
• Proven people and project management skills; able to lead teams.
• Full driving licence.

Responsibilities

• Lead design teams to deliver projects on time, to budget, and to the highest quality and safety standards.
• Manage design partners and ensure compliance with technical approval processes, consents, and governance requirements.
• Conduct technical design reviews and implement robust quality assurance procedures to ensure right-first-time delivery.
• Monitor design budgets, forecast costs, and identify value engineering opportunities to deliver cost savings.
• Build trusted client relationships through clear communication of technical solutions, risks, and opportunities.

Skills

Leadership

People management

Communication

Project management

Health & Safety

Education

Engineering degree

Chartered engineer

Job description

We're looking for a Senior Design Manager to join our Thames Water Capital Frameworks team based in Hogsmill, Surrey.

Location: Hogsmill, Surrey

Hours: 45 hours per week - some flexibility on hours available if desired, just let us know when you speak to us.

We are unable to offer certificates of sponsorship to any candidates in this role.

As our Senior Design Manager, you'll play a key role in shaping technically compliant, cost-effective, and environmentally considerate solutions during the concept and detailed design phases. Working on our strategic partnership with Thames Water, you'll ensure schemes meet regulatory commitments whilst delivering optimum value. You'll lead design teams, manage relationships with design partners and clients, and drive a culture of quality, innovation, and continuous improvement across water and wastewater infrastructure projects.

What will you be responsible for?

As a Senior Design Manager, You'll Be Working Within The Thames Water Capital Frameworks Team, Supporting Them In Delivering Design And Build Services For Water Infrastructure Assets. Your Day To Day Will Include

• Leading and performance managing design teams to deliver projects on time, to budget, and to the highest quality and safety standards
• Managing design partners and ensuring compliance with technical approval processes, consents, and governance requirements
• Conducting technical design reviews and implementing robust quality assurance procedures to ensure right-first-time delivery
• Monitoring design budgets, forecasting costs, and identifying value engineering opportunities to deliver cost savings
• Building trusted client relationships through clear communication of technical solutions, risks, and opportunities

What are we looking for?

This role of Senior Design Manager is great for you if:

• You hold a Full driving licence and have proven experience in the Water/Wastewater industry, including management of consultants and designers
• You're a degree-qualified engineer, preferable chartered, with prior experience as a Design Manager or Principal Engineer in the water sector
• You have strong people and project management skills, with the ability to lead teams and foster collaborative working relationships
• You understand the interaction of technical disciplines and can communicate complex solutions to non-technical audiences
• You're committed to health and safety compliance, including CDM duties, and can drive a culture of continuous improvement

Rewards And Benefits

We're proud to be able to offer our brilliant people a wide variety of benefits that you can tailor to your needs. You can see more information of benefits here.

Diversity and inclusion

Making Kier a diverse and inclusive place to work is a huge priority for us. We're proud of the steps we've taken so far, but we know we must always do more. Our employees are key in shaping Kier's diversity and inclusion initiatives and our people have made a huge impact on how we work, by using their experiences to shape our policies. You can see our D&I action plan here. As a Disability Confident employer, we will ensure that a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants that meet the minimum criteria for this role will be offered an interview.