Senior Design Manager

Senior Design Manager – Defence Projects | Bristol

💼 Salary:
Competitive (DOE) + Package

📍

Location:

Bristol

🏗️ Sector:
Construction | Defence | Secure Facilities | Design & Build

🕵️ ♂️ For my client – a highly respected regional contractor delivering secure, technically complex defence projects

Are you an experienced Senior Design Manager with a background in delivering highly regulated, technically complex projects? Are you looking for a role where design leadership, governance, and technical assurance are genuinely valued?

I’m recruiting on behalf of a well-established regional construction business based in Bristol, with a strong and growing defence portfolio. The company delivers a range of secure new build, refurbishment, and upgrade projects for long-standing MOD-aligned and public-sector clients.

With repeat frameworks and a long-term pipeline of defence work, this is an excellent opportunity for a Senior Design Manager to play a key role in shaping and safeguarding the technical quality of projects of national importance.

🧩 The Role

As Senior Design Manager, you will take ownership of the design management function across defence projects, ensuring that designs are fully coordinated, compliant, and deliverable within secure and highly controlled environments.

You will work closely with internal teams, consultants, and specialist supply-chain partners, acting as the technical conscience of the project from early design through construction and handover.

Key responsibilities include:

* Leading and managing the design process across defence projects

* Coordinating multidisciplinary consultant teams and specialist designers

* Managing design risk, change control, and technical assurance

* Ensuring compliance with employer’s requirements, statutory standards, and defence-specific protocols

* Supporting pre-construction, tender, and value-engineering activities

* Working closely with Project Managers, Commercial teams, and site leadership to ensure buildability and programme certainty

✅ Ideal Candidate Profile

* Proven experience as a Senior Design Manager or Design Manager within a main contracting environment

* Strong understanding of design coordination across architectural, structural, and MEP disciplines

* Experience delivering projects within defence, secure, or highly regulated sectors (highly desirable)

* Confident managing complex design information and stakeholder interfaces

* Strong communication, leadership, and problem-solving skills

* Based in or commutable to Bristol and the wider South West

Please note:

due to the nature of the work, candidates must be eligible for security clearance.

💰 What’s on Offer

* Competitive salary + comprehensive benefits package

* Long-term, stable pipeline of defence projects

* Opportunity to work on secure projects of national significance

* Collaborative, high-quality regional contractor with strong technical capability

* Clear progression pathways into Principal or Head of Design roles

📩 Interested?

If you’re a Senior Design Manager looking to apply your technical expertise within the defence sector and work with a respected Bristol-based contractor on long-term secure projects, get in touch today for a confidential discussion.

Shortlisting is underway - early applications are encouraged