Are you an experienced building services contract manager with strong technical knowledge and experience of dealing with building fabric and mechanical and electrical contractors serving a large and diverse property portfolio?
Are you passionate about continuous improvement, innovation, and creating best value outcomes for a broad range of buildings and users?
Do you enjoy a varied workload and working with a diverse range of colleagues, contractors and building users?
If so, we would welcome an application from you.
Contract type: This role is permanent.
Interviews to be held: To be confirmed
There is full information about the role below and attached but, if you would like an informal discussion, please e-mail
[email protected] (Head of Facilities & Building Services) to arrange a call.
About the role
The role requires a strong technical background, demonstrated through a degree‑level education or equivalent experience, alongside relevant professional trade qualifications such as City & Guilds.
Candidates must have thorough and current knowledge of building services maintenance principles, systems, and plant across operational buildings, as well as a solid understanding of associated health and safety legislation. Expertise in contract management—including tendering, monitoring, enforcement, and procurement—is essential, along with sound knowledge of statutory compliance areas such as electrical and gas safety, fire safety, asbestos, legionella and ACoP L8 requirements, and LOLER.
Significant experience managing and maintaining large commercial property portfolios is crucial, particularly within building services and ideally in a public‑sector environment delivering high‑quality, customer‑focused services. The role demands strong organisational, communication, negotiation, and problem‑solving skills, the ability to work independently under pressure, and the capability to supervise contracts and small projects. Candidates must also be proficient in key software tools such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and CAFM systems, demonstrate commitment to health and safety practices, embrace diversity and inclusion values, and be able to work across multiple sites as required.
The council's non-housing asset portfolio is both large and diverse, so the role has the opportunity to manage building services in an interesting mix of settings that include corporate offices, residential care homes, schools, and parks. This provides the opportunity to see a variety of assets around the city, and work with a broad range of building users.
The department is passionate about collaborative working, improving systems and processes to ensure continuous improvement and developing and training staff so that our buildings are kept safe and fit for purpose for the diverse needs of the users. The role provides opportunities for self-development, involvement in projects and to see firsthand how daily decisions and ideas come to life in a variety of settings to improve building services for our diverse range of customers.
Encouraging a diverse workforce
Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, male or trans.
Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and the work we are doing to encourage a diverse workforce (brighton-hove.gov.uk).
Why work for us?
As a council, we want to:
- be connected
- be confident
- be innovative and creative
- be diverse and inclusive
- be healthy and psychologically safe
For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us which gives details of our wellbeing support, our benefits including leave and pensions as well as details of our training and development.
How to apply
Please read our Apply for a job at the council pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you’ve submitted your application and at interview.
As part of your application, you will need to provide your education and career history and answer some application/shortlisting questions. Your answers to the application/shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as they will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our Shortlisting questions guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.
AI advice for candidates
We are interested in hearing about your experience and skills in your own words. While we value people who know how to use AI, we ask that you minimise using it in your application.
We are keen to hear how your experience and skills align to our values and the skills and experience needed to perform well in our roles with clear real examples from you. To support you in this, we have guidance on using the STAR model which can help you ensure you are telling us your whole story. We also provide clarity on the skills we are looking for in our adverts and in the job description/person specification attached to each job advert.
All the applications we receive are read by at least two hiring managers and we do not use AI in this process. Our experience of reading applications is that those that have heavily used AI contain generic paragraphs that are strikingly similar to other applicants’ responses. This makes it extremely difficult to differentiate between applications, and doesn't give us enough evidence of your individual skills. There is a risk that we will therefore not be able to shortlist you. Instead, we recommend you ensure your application stands out by presenting clear examples of your actual skills and experiences in your own words.
Additional information
Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.
Please note that this post is subject to a Basic Disclosure Criminal Records Check.
We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.
