Estates Engineering Manager - WC2E DD

Permanent Contract
Full time; 40 Hours per week
circa £55,000 - £60,000 per annum dependent on experience
Based in:
Covent Garden, London

The Royal Ballet and Opera continues to lead the way in opera, ballet, music and dance both live on stage and through multiple digital platforms, from live streaming to worldwide cinema screenings. Our Covent Garden theatre has been at the heart of London and British cultural life for three centuries. We are home to two world-class Companies:
The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera .

The Royal Opera House describes the place we work, not who we are. The whole is always more than the sum of its parts – we may be a House, but three quarters of our audiences experience what we do outside this building. While our Covent Garden theatre is the nerve centre, the impact and influence of the organisation can be felt in every corner of the country, and around the world.

The role:
The Estates and Facilities team are responsible for the maintenance and security of our sites, with a strong focus on engineering solutions and innovation across all sites. The department is currently in a new period of change and growth, making this a very exciting time to join.

We are now seeking to recruit to the new role of Engineering Manager, working with the Head of Estates Engineering Services in the management of Estates team and service providers, to include engineering and Stage engineering support services and security, ensuring Health & Safety and compliance duties are met and the highest level of customer experience provided.

What you’ll bring:
This role will suit a candidate who has an exceptional, extensive and proven track record in a similar role. You will be able to react quickly to situations, performing consistently under pressure and responding positively to changing circumstances. You will also be able to demonstrate:

• Degree qualified engineer/HNC/HND or proven competence through practical experience
• A detailed knowledge of the working practices and demands of a large complex public building and/or listed building.
• Good working knowledge of statutory compliance within a medium to large, diverse and complex estate.
• Previous knowledge and experience of maintaining buildings of historic, heritage importance.
• Strong project management skills and ability to deliver to budget and deadlines. Track record of taking and accepting responsibility for projects and initiatives.
• People management skills and experience, and the ability to support the team through training and coaching to achieve consistently high standards of performance.

We value the diversity new hires can bring to our workforce. A working knowledge of our repertoire is not essential, but the ability to learn quickly is.

To submit your application, please provide a supporting statement that outlines how your skills and experience match the essential criteria listed above. Your supporting statement will be reviewed by the shortlisting panel, so please do take the time to consider your response and use this to highlight your suitability for, and interest in, the role.

We recommend drafting your response in a separate document and then copying the final version into the application form. Please note that as part of our commitment to anonymised shortlisting, panels do not view CVs during the recruitment process. If you choose to upload your CV, our system will automatically pull information from your CV into our application form.

Closing date for applications: 11:59pm, Tuesday 20th January 2026.

Interviews will be held the week of 2nd February 2026.

To ensure a fair process, late applications will not be considered under any circumstances.

The Royal Ballet and Opera is one of the UK’s leading arts organisations and our aim is to inspire imagination, ignite emotion and make the extraordinary for everyone. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion underpin all that we do. We want our people to be representative of the diversity in the UK. We understand the creativity and innovation that diversity can bring and strive to create an inclusive environment in which everyone can thrive.

We encourage applications from…