Senior Design Manager

Senior Design Manager North West | Manchester Good design needs someone who can turn it into a buildable, coordinated and commercially sound project.

Peace Recruitment is working with a major UK main contractor to recruit a Senior Design Manager for its North West business, covering Manchester, Liverpool and the surrounding region.

This is an opportunity for someone who enjoys taking ownership, bringing different disciplines together and resolving the challenges that sit between a client’s ambitions and successful construction delivery.

You’ll join an established contractor with a varied regional portfolio across education, healthcare, commercial, residential and specialist science and research buildings. The business delivers substantial projects for public and private sector clients, offering exposure to demanding briefs, complex technical requirements and multidisciplinary teams.

If you’re looking for greater influence over how projects are planned, designed and delivered, this role is worth exploring.

The opportunity

As Senior Design Manager, you’ll lead the design aspects of tenders and live projects, working across preconstruction and delivery.

Your involvement will start early: understanding the brief, helping establish the design strategy, identifying the right resources and making sure the team has a clear plan. As projects progress, you’ll maintain coordination between consultants, contractors and the wider project team, ensuring design information supports the agreed construction programme.

You’ll need to be comfortable challenging proposals, asking practical questions and making decisions. Can the design be built efficiently? Does it meet the specification? Is it within budget? Have the implications of a change been properly understood?

Your judgement will help the team answer those questions before they become problems on site.

What you’ll be doing

You’ll take responsibility for establishing and managing an effective design team at both bid and delivery stages, ensuring the right skills, resources and scope of services are in place.

Your responsibilities will include:

Leading and coordinating the design process through the relevant RIBA stages.

Developing design programmes that align with the overall project programme.

Organising design reviews and coordination meetings, with clear actions and accountability.

Working with architects, engineers and specialist designers to achieve fully coordinated solutions.

Challenging the brief and identifying opportunities to improve buildability, efficiency and sustainability.

Ensuring design development reflects commercial requirements and cost plan allowances.

Monitoring progress, identifying risks and keeping the project team informed.

Coordinating input from contractors, planning authorities, building control and other statutory bodies.

Managing design changes with the project manager and client, ensuring changes are authorised and properly implemented.

Maintaining compliance with relevant legislation, standards, specifications and design management procedures.

Alongside the technical responsibilities, you’ll build productive relationships. You’ll need to bring people with different priorities together, resolve disagreements constructively and keep decisions moving.

What we’re looking forYou’ll bring strong experience of managing design coordination on construction projects, with the confidence to lead multidisciplinary teams and engage with senior stakeholders.

You should understand how design decisions affect cost, programme, procurement and site delivery.

Experience of tendering and bidding is particularly important, including involvement in single-stage tenders and preferred terms procurement routes.

We’re interested in evidence of what you’ve…