Regional Design Director

The Vacancy

Wates Group is seeking a Regional Design Director to join our Residential team in the London region. As a developer contractor, Wates Residential invests, develops, builds, and sells quality affordable homes through contracting and partnerships with Local Authorities, Housing Associations, and public bodies such as Homes England.

The Regional Design Director will be an active member of the regional board and Senior Leadership team. Responsible for the delivery of design activities, involved in contributing to strategic planning, business decisions and overall performance of the business region.

Our Regional Design Director has responsibility across all the RIBA plan of works stages 1-6 and will hold overall operational focussed design accountability for a business region with annual turnover between £20-200m, with responsibility for the fully coordinated & timely delivery of design on all projects in the region.

Reporting directly to the Regional Managing Director, you will play a pivotal role in collaborating with our Commercial and Operations Director, as well as the M&E, Sustainability and Social Value teams.

As our Regional Design Director, you will:

• Drive the development and continuous improvement of the design management function to ensure timely & consistent project deliveries and develop efficiencies in both design teams & consultants.
• Lead a high performing and inclusive design team through the PCSA and construction design & delivery stages and ensure an appropriate & efficient resource structure is in place to support the region.
• Create win themes and high-quality responses for construction and development focused bids to support successful conversion, where close collaboration with the Central Design Director will be essential to ensure success.
• Maintain relationships with consultants for the region to ensure consistency, improve standardisation, ensure shared learning and drive a high-performance culture within our consultants and supply chain.
• Ensure all design related governance and compliance standards, including the building safety act is adhered to on all projects within the region to align with customer requirements and brief, compliance and quality. Identify opportunities for continuous governance and process improvements to drive business optimisation.
• Ensure a thorough research is undertaken for each project, ranging from existing surveys & studies, previous or current planning applications and consents, local opportunities & constraints to ensure this information is considered to comply with our Zero Harm approach and consider innovative ways to deliver.

What we offer:

• Competitive salary & profit share scheme
• Car allowance/Company Car
• Flexible working
• Travel covered to any of our sites (subject to HMRC advisory rates)
• Extensive corporate benefits including, Private Medical, Pension 8% employers’ contribution, Health and Wellness programme, 26 days holidays + bank holidays and much more…
• One of the best learning and development programmes which is customizable to support your career progression goals. (c.7000 training sessions delivered year to date across the Wates Group)
• Industry leading family leave benefits to included 26 weeks fully paid maternity, 12 weeks fully paid paternity.

Work for Wates

Wates is one of the UK’s leading family-owned development, building and property maintenance companies.  Founded over 125 years ago, we have a proud legacy in the built environment.

We are driven by our purpose, ‘reimagining places for people to thrive’ and our three promises:

• Thriving places – working with customers, partners and communities to create places that are more sustainable, inclusive, and full of opportunity.
• Thriving planet – protecting nature and taking action on climate change by collaborating and innovating with our partners.
• Thriving people – creating opportunities and relationships so that everyone who works for and with us feels included, invested in and treated with care.

We are proud to be recognised as Gold Investors in People and as a Disability Confident employer.  We also ensure that our recruitment processes do not treat anyone less favourably due to an offending background.