Director of Estates - Operations

The Role:

Reporting to the Chief People Officer, you will provide strategic and operational leadership across Campus \& Building Management Services \& Commercial Services, bringing together operational excellence, customer experience, commercial performance, safety, resilience and continuous improvement into one integrated operational function.

You will play a critical role in delivering the Estates \& Facilities Directorate Plan 2025 \- 2030 helping to create a high performing, safe, sustainable and customer focused campus environment that supports the University's Manchester 2035 strategy.

You Will:

• Lead large scale operational services across Campus Security \& Support, Environmental Services, Campus Operations, Building Management and Commercial Services.


• Provide strategic leadership for Hospitality, Catering, Retail, Conferences \& Venues, driving commercial performance, customer experience and sustainable income growth.


• Lead operational and cultural transformation programmes, embedding service excellence, performance management and continuous improvement across all service areas.


• Develop and implement operational strategies, service standards, KPI's and assurance frameworks that improve efficiency, resilience and organisational performance.


• Provide senior leadership for campus security, emergency preparedness, business continuity and major incident response across a complex 24/7/365 environment.


• Lead significant operational budgets, supplier frameworks, procurement activity and contract management across a large and diverse operational portfolio.


• Drive innovation, digital capability and modern operational practices that enhance service delivery and campus experience.


• Build strong relationships across the University and with external stakeholders including regulators, emergency services, commercial partners and sector networks.

This is a role for a leader who combines operational credibility, commercial acumen and strategic leadership, with the ability to lead complex services at scale and deliver meaningful organisational improvement within a highly visible environment.

You Will Bring:

• Significant senior leadership experience within a complex operational environment, ideally spanning estates, facilities, commercial services, hospitality, security or campus operations.


• A strong track record of leading large, multi disciplinary operational teams across customer facing and business critical services.


• Experience of driving operational performance, customer experience, compliance, resilience and commercial delivery.


• Strong financial and commercial capability, including budget management, supplier oversight, contract management and income generating services.


• Proven experience leading within highly regulated environments, with strong understanding of health \& safety, risk management, emergency preparedness and business continuity.


• Excellent stakeholder engagement and influencing skills, with the credibility to operate effectively at executive and strategic levels.


• The ability to balance operational detail with strategic oversight, leading services that directly shape the daily experience of students, staff and visitors.

Why Join Us:

This is an opportunity to shape the future direction of Estates \& Facilities. You will play a pivotal role in delivering transformational change across a major estate, helping to build a digitally enabled, sustainable and high performing organisation that supports the University's Manchester 2035 strategy.

What will you get in return:

• Fantastic market leading Pension scheme


• Excellent employee health and wellbeing services including an Employee Assistance Programme


• Exceptional starting annual leave entitlement, plus bank holidays.


• Additional paid closure over the Christmas period.


• Local and national discounts at a range of major retailers.

*Interviews for this role will take place in July. We reserve the right to close the role early if a high volume of applications are received.*

Please see the link below for a Candidate Pack which contains the person specification criteria. For informal enquiries please contact the Talent Attraction Team talent.attraction@manchester.ac.uk.

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