Structures Department Lead

Society is in your hands, what are you waiting for?

We have an exciting opportunity for a Structures Department Lead to join our team and continue our successful growth of the Structures team.  This role will be based in our Cambridge office with travel across the UK and can be worked flexibly with a minimum of 3 days per week in the office and the option of adjusted start and finish times.

Sweco has an award winning portfolio of UK and international projects, demonstrating a broad range of experience in delivering leading-edge, sustainable structural engineering consultancy services. Our ethos is based on close working relationships with like-minded clients and design professionals. 

As part of the Mission Critical Leadership Team you’ll have the opportunity to influence and implement activities for the benefit of both your department and the wider business unit.

What does the role involve?     

As our Structures Department Lead you will lead and manage your Structures colleagues and be accountable for people leadership, financial results, client outcomes, project quality and commercial awareness across the department.

Key activities will include:

• Working strategically with the Divisional Manager in developing the roadmap for the department that defines the direction of growth and change required to meet future market expectations and needs.
• Budget setting and delivery of key budget metrics with early warning of any variances and proactive problem solving.
• Leading by example, directing and supporting your management team to fulfil Division,  Business Unit, Department and individual goals to achieve overall success.
• Participating in work winning initiatives and working with other managers to realise opportunities and develop ’rounded’ cross-business client relations at all levels, regions and specialisms where appropriate.
• Undertaking a lead role in developing and maintaining our relationships with key clients and partners through active client engagement and building strong relationships through excellent delivery and expert knowledge.
• Identifying opportunities, running tenders, winning work. Co-ordinating discussions with the bid executive, bid team and legal, and commercial governance team to ensure that adequate provisions are included in all bids to manage and mitigate all risks.
• Taking ownership for and acting in the best interests of the business when executing Delegation of Authority (DoA) responsibilities.
• Active management of workload and resources with reference to order backlog and its phasing.
• Supporting and participating in initiatives such as succession planning, upskilling, mentoring, coaching, achievement of professional qualifications, etc.
• Delivering, monitoring, and assuring financial compliance and technical governance on projects.
• Ensuring consistency of design approach and deliverable outputs within the project portfolio.

To be successful in this role you’ll have:

• Strong leadership skills to enable you to be a pro-active part of the Division and Business Unit management team working alongside and providing support to the wider team in the development of overall objectives.
• Strong commercial acumen with the ability to influence strategic decision-making within the business and make commercial decisions within defined parameters (delivers to agreed project scope, time, cost and quality).
• Good client understanding of projects across the division with great sales and presentation skills.
• Excellent consultancy, communication and relationship management skills with the ability to adapt your style to suit different audiences.
• Extensive experience of relevant tender processes with the ability to understand the brief and demonstrate our professional capability.
• The ability to engage with key stakeholders to gain commitment and to influence the acceptance of innovative ideas and concepts in respect of change plans.
• The ability to work across multi-discipline environments primarily within UK business, and also other Sweco business Regions, and generate business from leads.
• Experience of delivering across a multi-site organisation.
• Chartered membership of a relevant professional institution, or working towards it.

If you believe you have the skill set required to be our Structures Department Lead are keen to join a business with genuine opportunities for career progression, then we’d love to hear from you.

Let’s transform society together at Sweco.