Director of Estates (Transformation)

About the role

Job reference: PSX-031633 Salary: Competitive Salary Faculty/Organisational Unit: Professional Services Location: Oxford Road Employment type: Permanent Division/Team: Directorate of Estates Hours Per Week: 35 hours per week/ 1.0 FTE Closing date (DD/MM/YYYY): 09/07/2026 Contract Duration: NA School/Directorate: Directorate of Estates and Facilities The Role: Reporting to the Chief Property Officer, you will provide strategic leadership bringing together Transformation, Technology & Innovation, Resources, Risk & Performance Management, Environmental Sustainability, and Health, Safety & Wellbeing into one integrated function. You will play a central role in delivering the Estates & Facilities Directorate Plan 2025 - 2030, helping to drive organisational agility, digital capability, service excellence and sustainability across the Directorate and wider University. You Will: Lead large scale transformation and innovation initiatives across Estates & Facilities, driving operational and strategic improvement. Develop and implement coherent Technology, Transformation and Innovation (TTI) model, embedding digital capability, data driven services and emerging technologies across the Directorate. Provide executive leadership for Digital Estate, operational technology, automation, analytics and service transformation programmes. Lead governance, planning, performance and assurance activity across the Directorate, driving continuous improvement and organisational effectiveness. Drive progress towards net zero carbon, environmental sustainability and climate resilience objectives across Estates & Facilities. Provide strategic leadership for Health, Safety & Wellbeing, ensuring robust governance, risk management and proactive safety culture. Build strong partnerships across the University, industry and external stakeholders to support innovation, collaboration and long term strategic delivery. This is a role for a leader who combines strategic vision, transformation expertise and operational credibility, with the ability to influence and senior levels and deliver meaningful organisational change within a highly complex environment. You Will Bring: Significant senior leadership experience with a complex public or private sector organisation. A strong track record of leading large scale transformation, innovation and organisational change programmes. Experience of developing operating models, performance frameworks and governance structures that drive measurable improvement. Demonstrable expertise in digital transformation, technology enabled services, data and performance management, or innovation delivery. Proven ability to lead high performing, multidisciplinary team through periods of change and growth. Strong stakeholder engagement and influencing skills, with the credibility to operate effectively at executive and strategic levels. Experience of managing significant resources, business planning processes and organisational performance within a large scale environment. A collaborative and values led leadership style, with a commitment to inclusion, sustainability and service excellence. 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. Competitive salary

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