Senior Design Manager

About the Role

Buro Happold is seeking a Senior Design Manager to support major building and infrastructure work across the Middle East. This position is centered on proactive design management, strong client engagement, and hands-on oversight of technical quality throughout project delivery. The role is based in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, and involves coordinating remote design teams while helping deliver complex projects successfully and on time.

You will join a consultancy known for an ambitious strategic direction, a culture that encourages learning, and an entrepreneurial approach. The organisation places weight on sustainability, equity, social value, and performance, with a focus on creating meaningful impact through its work.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive design management activities for major building and infrastructure projects in the Middle East.
• Take ownership of project execution, delivery, and design-related client communication.
• Lead technical quality control across project deliverables and related outputs.
• Manage and coordinate remote design teams based in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia.
• Provide technical contributions to design materials and project deliverables within the Buro Happold scope.
• Lead BIM-based design development and collaboration workflows.
• Track and resolve design issues, risks, and change requests to support successful delivery.
• Monitor RIBA design stages across individual projects and masterplanning work.
• Review design submissions for stage or gateway approvals.
• Contribute to value engineering and cost validation exercises.
• Support the Project Manager or Project Director in overall project delivery.
• Prepare RFPs for design consultants and related services.
• Produce weekly and monthly design progress reports.
• Act as the client-facing contact for all design matters.
• Help define how projects or programmes should be structured, led, and governed.
• Set up the design and delivery process, including client oversight, resources, skills, assurance, communications, design packaging, and decision-making structure.
• Assist the Project Planner with schedules, milestones, dependency analysis, and phasing options.
• Assess project progress to identify constraints or weaknesses and recommend more efficient approaches.
• Assign work effectively across team members to maintain balanced workloads.
• Carry out feasibility studies and support consultant and sub-consultant selection.
• Contribute to the ongoing development of PDM processes and procedures.

Requirements

• Proven experience working directly with clients and a solid understanding of the design process.
• Strong organisational ability with the capacity to manage several important stakeholder expectations at once.
• Experience working in a BIM environment and familiarity with Revit, BIM 360, and Navisworks.
• Excellent written, verbal, and visual communication skills, with the ability to present complex ideas clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
• A positive, resilient mindset and willingness to handle high-volume work.
• Experience mentoring and coaching team members.
• Strong time management, pace, and customer-service orientation.
• Bachelor’s degree in Architecture, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated leadership capability.
• Ability to write detailed reports and RFPs.
• High attention to detail and strong technical aptitude.
• Good interpersonal and multitasking abilities.
• Excellent organisational and technical skills.
• Adaptability and stress-management capability.
• Good IT and numerical skills.

What We Offer

• Opportunity to work with one of the world’s most respected consultancies.
• Hybrid working arrangements.
• Attractive salary and benefits package.
• Strong support for continuous learning and development at every career stage.
• Coverage for two memberships to professional bodies or subscriptions.
• An international workplace culture with exposure to exceptional projects and colleagues.

Additional Information

Buro Happold values flexible working styles and welcomes applicants who are looking for balance and adaptability in how they work. The company also emphasises inclusion, diversity of thought, and representation in the built environment, and is especially interested in hearing from underrepresented groups.

If you need any changes to the application process to make it easier or more comfortable, you may contact recruitment@burohappold.com for support.