Change your career, change lives
The Open University is the UK’s largest university, a world leader in flexible part-time education combining a mission to widen access to higher education with research excellence, transforming lives through education. Find out more about us and our mission by watching this short video (you will be taken to YouTube by clicking this link).
About the Role
As the Maintenance Manager, Contracts & Regions, you will ensure the effective maintenance of mechanical, electrical engineering services, plant, equipment and the building fabric at all National and Regional sites to ensure University Health, Safety and compliance objectives are met.
You will be responsible for the planning and delivery of planned, reactive and emergency maintenance within the cost, customer care, governance, quality and safety parameters set by legislation, The Open University and Estates.
You will instruct and manage contractors at all National and Regional offices and on the Milton Keynes campus, for small works, ad hoc, reactive and planned maintenance and manage specific maintenance works from inception through to completion. You will contribute and co-operate to deliver agreed objectives and targets as well as deputise as required for the Senior Estates Maintenance Manager.
Key Responsibilities
- Arranges and co-ordinates the effective planned and reactive maintenance of mechanical, electrical services and building fabrics of University properties located in Milton Keynes and the 7 National and Regional Locations throughout the UK and Northern Ireland.
- Support the Senior Maintenance Manager and the Maintenance Managers to organise and deliver maintenance and small works activity.
- Responsible for day-to-day management of contractors employed on major contracts for planned and reactive maintenance, as well as ad-hoc call out and small works, both M&E and Fabrics.
- Plans, organises and monitors contractors' staff on site to ensure co-ordination with Open University activities and compliance with statutory requirements and Estates procedures.
- Ensures safe systems of work are implemented. Ensure compliance with all H&S Regulations, CDM Regulations, Building Safety Act and ACOPS.
- Engage with and promote a positive approach to compliance and Health & Safety, ensuring a collaborative approach with H&S colleagues and other Estates colleagues.
- Use asset management and other local IT systems to enhance and ensure effective and efficient maintenance.
- Review, develop, plan, monitor and prioritises M&E and Fabric maintenance programmes and repairs making judgements across a wide range of issues taking into account conflicting demands and legislation.
- Operate BMS (Trend) and Fire Alarm systems in conjunction with the Building Management System Engineer. Monitor plant performance and diagnoses faults via the Building Management System.
- Arrange suppliers and ad hoc contractors, negotiating agreement to cost, timely attendance, deliveries, methods and procedures.
- Prepare risk assessments for own area of work and formerly assess and review Risk and Method Statements submitted by contractors along with reviewing competencies and safe systems of works.
- Arrange and co-ordinates statutory inspections and ensure records relating to inspections are recorded for the Compliance Manager.
- Provide technical advice to the Senior Estates Maintenance Manager on day-to-day condition and operational status of critical systems and building fabric condition.
- Take action with due regard for Legionella, asbestos management and confined spaces. Prepares Permits to Work for confined spaces, access to sub-stations and hot works at National & Regional premises and the Milton Keynes campus.
- Develop and implement maintenance policies, plans and procedures.
- Advise on and organise isolations of services to allow maintenance, alterations or new connections to be installed.
- Make judgements across a wide range of maintenance issues taking into account customer’s needs, legislation, health & safety, conflicting demands, condition of plant, building fabric condition and outcome of complex fault finding.
- Provide input to the Senior Maintenance Manager and Head of Infrastructure for the Infrastructure five-year budget plan figures and plans for inclusion into the annual Unit Plan.
- Discharge responsibilities as member of the Estates fire incident team, and business continuity incident response team.
- Responsible for major assets, plant and equipment such as site wide heating systems and building wide chillers and AHUs.
- Regular, performance management meetings with contractors, monitoring performance, objective setting and contract KPI appraisal.
- Use of SAP based purchase order, leave and absence and expenses systems for personal tasks.
- Any other duties as directed by the Director of Estates.
About You
Essential:
- A minimum qualification of HNC/HND or NVQ Level 4 in Building Services, Electrical/Mechanical Engineering, Building Surveying, or Construction Management with membership of a professional body relevant to building engineering services. A degree level qualification in this field is desirable.
- Proven experience delivering both engineering and fabric maintenance in a combined role.
- Demonstrable experience of managing contractors and overseeing maintenance contracts effectively.
- Strong knowledge of health and safety regulations, including CDM and the Building Safety Act.
- Familiarity with procurement methods and contract management.
- Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to build credibility and collaborative effectively across various teams and levels of seniority.
- Experience developing and implementing maintenance policies and strategic plans.
- Demonstrates sound judgment, effective collaboration, and excellent written and verbal communication.
- Manages conflicting demands with resilience and shows a clear commitment to delivering high-quality customer service.
- Proficient in budget management and common IT tools such as email, internet, word processing, spreadsheets.
- Full and current UK driving license and able to travel to other University premises in the UK and Northern Ireland.
- Ability to participate in the management on-call out of hours rota and be able to respond to additional out of hours emergencies when called to assist others. Response time for attendance on site is within 45 minutes.
- Ability to be flexible in being able to work out of hours to manage maintenance works when required.
Desirable:
- Membership or able to achieve membership of a relevant professional body at Associate or Licentiate level (if HE qualification criteria is already met).
- An understanding of and capability to use asset management (CAFM) database software.
- An understanding of and capability to use BMS and fire alarm systems.
- Asbestos awareness training.
- Legionella Responsible Persons - Level 2 or 3 Award.
Support with your application
If you have any questions, or need support or adjustments relating to your application, the recruitment process, or the role, please contact us on 01908 541111 or email careers@open.ac.uk quoting the advert reference number.
What's in it for you?
At The Open University, we offer a range of benefits to recognise and reward great work, alongside policies and flexible working that contribute towards a great work life balance. Get all the details of what benefits we offer by visiting our Staff Benefits page (clicking this link will open a new window).
Flexible working
We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it’s compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.
This role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office however it is expected that when necessary and in response to business needs, you will also need to travel to each of our Region & Nations offices, Nottingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff & Belfast. We’d expect this to be one visit to all 5 of these sites of these sites per month.
Next steps in the Recruitment process
We anticipate that face-to-face interviews for this role will be taking place on-site at our Milton Keynes campus during the week commencing 24 November 2025.
Early closing date notification
We may close this job advert earlier than the published closing date where a satisfactory number of applications are received. We would therefore encourage early applications.
How to apply
To apply for this role please submit the following documents:
- CV
- A personal statement of up to 1000 words. You should set out in your statement why you are interested in the role and provide examples of where your skills and experience meet the required competencies for this role as detailed in the job description.
You can view your progress and application communications when you are logged into our recruitment system. Please check your spam/junk folders if you do not receive associated email updates.
