Project values vary considerably, with the team involved in everything from individual professional surveying instructions through to contract administration and project management assignments ranging from approximately £100,000 to £2m+.

Alongside the established consultancy, the wider group also has dedicated surveying and structural engineering and main contracting capabilities. This provides the successful candidate with exposure to a much broader range of projects than would typically be available within a standalone building surveying practice.

The Role

The Associate Director will take responsibility for the day-to-day leadership of the building surveying function.

The founder currently maintains oversight across surveying, project management, and construction operations. This appointment is intended to bring in a trusted senior surveyor who can assume ownership of building consultancy and operate with a significant degree of autonomy. You will become a key point of contact for the surveying team and its clients, ensuring projects are properly scoped, quoted, allocated, and delivered.

Importantly, this remains a hands-on leadership position. The successful individual should enjoy managing people and clients but remain technically strong enough to personally oversee important and complex surveying instructions.

The role offers hybrid working, with the expectation that the successful individual will balance time between home, the Manchester office, and client/project sites as required. The focus is on effective delivery and leadership rather than being office-based five days per week.

Key Responsibilities

You will be responsible for:

• Taking day-to-day responsibility for the building surveying function
• Leading, supporting, and developing Building Surveyors within the business
• Acting as a senior technical point of contact across the consultancy
• Managing relationships with key existing clients
• Meeting new and prospective clients and understanding their requirements
• Reviewing inbound enquiries and identifying the appropriate scope of professional services
• Preparing and reviewing fee proposals and quotations
• Undertaking and overseeing commercial pre-acquisition surveys
• Preparing and reviewing schedules of dilapidations
• Acting for landlords and tenants in dilapidations and end-of-lease negotiations
• Preparing schedules of condition
• Undertaking defect diagnosis and technical building investigations
• Providing Party Wall advice where required
• Delivering and overseeing contract administration
• Managing refurbishment, maintenance, and remedial projects
• Overseeing project allocation and workloads across the surveying team
• Ensuring projects are delivered commercially, efficiently, and to appropriate professional standards
• Maintaining strong RICS standards and technical quality
• Supporting the commercial performance and continued growth of the consultancy
• Working closely with the founder and wider leadership team on the development of the business

Larger standalone construction and project management assignments can be supported by other specialist teams within the group, allowing this individual to concentrate predominantly on the professional building consultancy operation.

The Person

My client is looking for an established Chartered Building Surveyor operating at Associate / Associate Director level, or someone with the experience and capability to make that step.

You are likely to have approximately 8–10+ years' overall experience, including several years operating post-chartership.

The successful candidate is likely to demonstrate:

• MRICS qualification
• Strong post-chartered Building Surveying experience
• Broad commercial building consultancy knowledge
• Strong technical understanding of commercial property
• Pre-acquisition / technical due diligence experience
• Dilapidations experience
• Schedule of condition experience
• Contract administration capability
• Project management experience
• Ability to scope and quote professional instructions
• Commercial and financial awareness
• Strong client management skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication
• Experience managing or mentoring other surveyors
• Ability to manage multiple projects and instructions simultaneously
• Strong organizational skills
• A pragmatic and entrepreneurial approach

Experience within an independent or SME consultancy would be particularly relevant, although candidates currently working within larger national consultancies will absolutely be considered. For someone coming from a larger corporate environment, the attraction is the opportunity to have far greater autonomy, visibility, and influence over the direction of the business.

Why Consider It?

This is not an opportunity to simply move from one consultancy to another and continue doing the same job. My client wants this person to become an important part of its senior leadership structure and take genuine ownership of a key business function.

The opportunity includes:

• Circa £70,000 base salary
• Bonus potential taking total earnings to approximately £80,000
• Hybrid and flexible working
• Genuine senior leadership responsibility
• Autonomy over the building surveying function
• Established client relationships
• Significant inbound enquiry volumes
• Strong existing project pipeline
• Opportunity to manage and develop a surveying team
• Broad commercial project exposure
• Direct access to the founder and decision-makers
• Ability to influence how the consultancy develops
• An entrepreneurial environment without the bureaucracy associated with many larger consultancies
• Significant scope for the position to develop alongside the continued growth of the wider group

The Opportunity Ahead

My client has reached an exciting stage in its development.

The foundations are already there: an established consultancy, complementary surveying, engineering, and construction capabilities, an existing team, strong client relationships, and significant inbound demand.

The next priority is bringing in a reliable, commercially capable, and technically strong Associate Director who can take ownership of the building surveying operation and provide the leadership required for its next phase of growth.

For the right Chartered Building Surveyor, this represents an opportunity to move beyond simply delivering instructions and become a genuinely influential part of an ambitious independent consultancy group.