Design Director

To be eligible, you’ll need to be based in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, or Luxembourg. The role will also involve regular travel across our sites in EMEA.

The Design/Technical Director of Development, EMEA plays a pivotal leadership role within the Development team, acting as the owner of CloudHQ’s technical design vision across new developments, expansions, and global design standards.

The Design/Technical Director will lead all aspects of architectural, civil, structural, mechanical, and electrical design for CloudHQ’s hyperscale data centre developments across multiple regions.

• Defining and governing CloudHQ’s Basis of Design (BoD)
• Managing and directing external design consultants
• Ensuring design consistency, quality, cost‑efficiency, constructability, and scalability
• Providing cross‑functional leadership from site due diligence and concept design through to construction
• Partnering closely with wider Development team, Site Selection, Construction, Operations, and commercial teams to deliver technically robust designs that meet client requirements and CloudHQ standards.
• The Technical Director acts as CloudHQ’s technical design authority, ensuring every facility is engineered to support reliability, performance, and operational excellence.

• Own and continuously evolve CloudHQ’s global Basis of Design, engineering guidelines, standard details, and specifications in conjunction with global design leads.
• Lead multidisciplinary design teams (MEP, structural, civil, architectural, fire/life safety) across RIBA stage 1 to 4 design phases.
• Review all design packages to ensure compliance with CloudHQ standards, local codes, sustainability requirements, and hyperscale customer specifications.
• Support CloudHQ Construction teams to ensure alignment with the Basis of Design
• Direct consultant teams and challenge design decisions to optimise cost, constructability, efficiency, and performance.
• Ensure standardisation across regions while allowing for local code adaptation and site‑specific constraints.

• Work closely with Development teams during land acquisition, feasibility analysis, and site evaluation to identify design risks and technical constraints early.
• Partner with Construction teams to validate constructability, sequencing, engineering interfaces, and delivery risks.
• Collaborate with Operations to incorporate maintainability, resilience, and future scalability requirements into all designs.
• Engage with commercial teams during customer solutioning, supporting technical clarifications and design‑related inputs.

• Implement design governance processes ensuring accuracy, coordination, and timely delivery of all consultant submissions.
• Identify and mitigate design risks during all project phases.
• Drive quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) across every design package.
• Validate MEP redundancy strategies, power distribution architecture, cooling topologies, and life‑safety systems.
• Ensure designs adhere to relevant international standards, environmental requirements, and local permitting guidelines.

• Evaluate emerging technologies and integrate best‑practice design innovations into CloudHQ’s standards.
• Explore modularisation, prefabrication, and design‑for‑manufacture opportunities to improve schedule, quality, and cost.
• Develop scalable design templates for multi‑phase campuses and high‑density deployments.
• Benchmark industry trends to ensure CloudHQ design remains competitive and future‑proof.
• Select, manage, and direct external design consultancies, ensuring accountability and performance.
• Review and approve consultant proposals, scopes of work, and deliverables.
• Participate in design‑related negotiations with contractors, equipment vendors, and partners.
• Act as the primary design escalation point for CloudHQ leadership and project teams.

• Master’s (Preferred) / Bachelors (Acceptable) degree in Electrical, Mechanical, Civil, Structural, Architectural Engineering or related field.
• 10+ years of design leadership experience within data…