Principal Design Manager

Job Description

This is a key engineering leadership role, alongside the Systems Integration and Assurance Manager and the Quality and Business Improvement Manager, reporting to the Lead Engineering Manager who oversees the wider Engineering team on the project.

As Principal Design Manager, you are accountable for all the design on the project. You will lead our design team and manage the designers (including Costain Engineering and Design, Mott Mac Donald / Systra Design JV and all subcontractors with design responsibility including contract management), you are responsible for the design being delivered on time, to budget and technically compliant to the HRS
02 Works Information, comprising of the design for:

• Construction tunnel ventilation system, plus Construction Ventilation Control System,
• Permanent Tunnel Ventilation system, plus VCS.
• Tunnel M&E, including LV distribution, Lighting, Signage, CMS, Fire Main, Tunnel pumped drainage, CCTVS, PAVA and all associated.
• Tunnel and M&E SCADA systems.
• Open Route LV and lighting systems
• All associated design and engineering scope such as CAT checks, Noise and Vibration, EMC and Earthing and Bonding.

All our designs must be safe, sustainable (including meeting the HS2 Carbon reduction targets), and efficient to construct. As a Principal Design Manager, you will be required to establish and lead a team of other design managers and digital engineering (BIM), on the project.

• Establish collaborative working relationships with HS2, design organisations, delivery team and supply chain. Oversee all design and engineering related management on behalf of the Lead Engineering Manager.
• Set up and maintain all required Engineering Management plans and processes (as required by our contract and as necessary for design delivery) and check they are clearly defined and understood by the wider team. Ensure that these are being followed by the designers.
• Develop a programme led design delivery culture within the design team, with detailed integrated design programmes, short interval control methods and progress metrics as part of a weekly/monthly drumbeat. Ensure reporting on design progress and technical risks regularly.
• Establish MDIP (and specific TDIPs), with clearly defined outputs (deliverables) at each design stage (plan appropriate design stages and sub-design stages to control the design production in line with the projects Requirements and Assurance Plan) and define how design deliverables can be progressively checked and earned value measured. Hold the designers to account for delivering to this engineering delivery plan through reporting and contractual mechanisms.
• Implement sufficient processes so that the designs we received from the designers are quality controlled, technically assured and are of sufficient detail (required level of information and coordination) for the design lifecycle stage (concept, Scheme and Detailed Design). Ensure that the designs are suitable for the assurance, procurement and installation activities at each lifecycle stage.
• Manage Designer accounts, reporting of design account management and design progress.
• Manage design change and influence HS2, the other Rail systems contractor and our procurement/delivery teams to prevent unnecessary or disruptive design change. Systematically challenge the need for design change. Work with our commercial team to draft technically oriented correspondence (upstream to HS2 and downstream to designers and subcontractors).
• Ensure the designs are constructable, follow safe‑by‑design principles and achieve the projects sustainability goals, including reporting or carbon metrics etc as required (work with the Carbon Manager to ensure the HS2 carbon reduction target is met). Embed the principles of Production Thinking / MMC into our design solutions.
• Provide judgment and advice, including bringing in wider Costain expertise as required, to create optimised solutions (off‑site fabrication and use of robotics for installation is a project aspiration and this must be enabled by the design), and to meet the HS2 requirements and achieve our commercial aims. Influence the…