Mandala Group
Sector Lead - Main Contractor
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Senior Operational Lead - Education Delivery Portfolio
About the Role
Mandala Group has been exclusively retained by a fast-growing UK main contractor to appoint the senior operational lead for its Education delivery portfolio. The business already has a significant track record with the Department for Education, has delivered through CF21, and has secured its position for the next generation of DfE work through CF25.
They are looking for someone capable of sitting above the individual Project Leads and taking an overarching view of the Education portfolio: multiple projects, multiple teams, and overall responsibility for how those projects perform.
Responsibilities:
- Overall delivery performance across multiple Education projects
- Leadership, challenge, and development of Project Leads and their teams
- Programme, commercial, design, and operational performance
- Project, technical, and commercial risk and opportunity
- Senior client relationships
- Project performance reviews and accountability
- Resource planning across the portfolio
- Collaboration between project teams and off-site manufacturing
- Continuous improvement and lessons learned
- Health, safety, quality, and client satisfaction
- Developing the people and leadership capability needed for future growth
Why This Is Different
This is an opportunity to join a contractor at a particularly exciting point in its growth. The business is challenging the traditional construction model by bringing design, off-site manufacturing, and on-site delivery much closer together. Rather than treating manufacturing as an add-on to conventional construction, it forms part of how projects are designed, planned, and delivered.
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For an experienced main contractor leader, this creates an interesting challenge: taking everything you know about delivering complex projects and applying it within a business continually looking for a better, faster, and more integrated way of doing it.
This is not a newly created Education proposition looking for someone to find it some work. There is an established DfE track record, live delivery, experienced teams beneath the role, and a future pipeline. The appointment is about making sure that as the portfolio grows, the quality of operational leadership grows with it.
The longer-term opportunity matters too. The intention is for the person joining at this level to grow with the business, with a potential route towards Regional Director and ultimately Board-level responsibility as the organisation continues to expand.
Who Should Be Reading This?
Someone who has spent their career actually delivering construction projects for a main contractor. You may be a Senior Contracts Manager, Operations Manager, Project Director, Construction Director, or already operating at sector leadership level.
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What matters is that you can walk into a room with several Project Leads and quickly understand where every project really is.
Requirements
- DfE experience matters. This isn't a generic construction leadership appointment where Education happens to be one of the sectors. We want someone who understands schools.
- Ideally, you will have significant experience delivering projects through the Department for Education and exposure to CF21, CF25, or previous DfE/ESFA frameworks.
- You should understand the particular demands of DfE delivery: the client environment, specifications, programme pressures, design requirements, handover expectations, and the commercial and operational challenges that come with delivering multiple Education schemes.
Package
- £105,000 – £130,000 depending on experience.
- The wider package includes a car allowance, discretionary annual bonus with potential profit share upside, pension, 25 days' annual leave, private medical insurance, healthcare cash plan, and 4x basic salary life assurance.
For someone who knows the DfE market, has proven they can deliver major Education projects, and now wants responsibility beyond the boundary of a single site, this is an opportunity to take genuine ownership of a national portfolio and grow with a contractor whose ambitions extend considerably beyond where it is today.
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