Property & Facilities Management Appointments for CBRE

About CBRE

CBRE is one of the world's largest commercial real estate services firms. CBRE Managed Services (CBREMS) sits within CBRE Group and provides property management services, with a focus on positive experiences for clients and tenants, regulatory and procedural compliance, and strong relationships with every stakeholder in a building.

Our work with CBRE

Maxwell Stephens has made two property and facilities management appointments for CBRE:

• Locality Facilities Manager for CBRE Managed Services, running operations across multiple properties within a region.
• Centre Manager for CBRE at Cwmbran Centre, one of Wales' most established retail destinations.

Locality Facilities Manager, CBRE Managed Services

CBREMS asked Maxwell Stephens to recruit a Locality Facilities Manager to oversee operational activity across multiple properties within a specific region. It is a role with substantial supervisory responsibility, covering:

• Operational management: day-to-day site operations, regular building inspections, maintenance and repair programmes, and maintaining a positive image of each building.
• Financial management: drafting, controlling and reporting on service charge budgets and expenditure, with procurement in line with company policy.
• Contract management: tendering and placing contracts for services.
• Compliance and risk: health and safety compliance, safety evacuations and records, environmental responsibilities, emergency plans, and risk and insurance issues.
• Stakeholder engagement: relationships with tenants, suppliers and local authorities.
• Project management: leading major work programmes and keeping them aligned with client KPIs.

Locality and multi-site roles are harder to fill than their single-site equivalents. The manager is rarely on any one property for long, so has to set standards that hold in their absence, answers to several sets of occupiers and the managing agent's KPIs at once, and often represents the agent at a site without a colleague on hand. Add service charge accountability and the field narrows: candidates strong on the technical side of building operations are not always comfortable defending a budget to tenants, and vice versa.

We ran a targeted campaign built around the brief rather than relying on a broad advertising response. We concentrated on facilities professionals who had already overseen several properties at once, rather than single-site managers looking to step up; assessed service charge budgets, procurement discipline and KPI reporting as core competencies; and looked for people who understood health, safety and environmental obligations well enough to own them across a portfolio and could hold their own with tenants, suppliers and local authorities.

The Locality Facilities Manager we placed brought extensive experience of overseeing multiple properties and integrated quickly into the CBREMS team. In post they managed site operations, inspections and maintenance programmes, kept service charge budgets and procurement under control, maintained health, safety and environmental standards and emergency plans, and led major work programmes as the liaison point for all parties. Operational efficiency improved, tenant satisfaction rose, and the properties in their care met the client's KPIs.

The market for this role

Our 2026 salary benchmarks put Facilities Manager roles at around £40,000 to £65,000, depending on location, sector and scope.

Centre Manager, Cwmbran Centre

CBRE asked Maxwell Stephens to recruit an experienced Centre Manager for Cwmbran Centre, to take responsibility for the day-to-day leadership and operational performance of a busy retail environment. The role covered centre operations, relationships with clients, tenants, contractors and suppliers, service charge budgets and financial performance, compliance with property management legislation, health, safety, environmental and insurance requirements, building operations and maintenance, business planning, contract and supplier performance, and leadership of on-site teams.

Shopping centre management is a distinct discipline within property. The manager answers to the owner and managing agent on financial performance, to retailers on footfall and service, and to the public on safety and experience, all at once and usually in full view. Candidates who have only run office or industrial assets rarely transfer straight in.

Working closely with CBRE, we confined the search to professionals who had managed large retail, mixed-use or commercial assets, with emphasis on retail property management, service charge and financial management, health and safety and compliance, knowledge of property legislation and contract management, and leadership of multi-disciplinary teams. Candidates were assessed against both the technical and behavioural requirements of the role, including fit with CBRE's environment.

We placed a Centre Manager who exceeded CBRE's expectations, bringing significant expertise in property management, operational leadership and stakeholder engagement. They quickly established themselves within the business, taking ownership of centre operations, tenant relationships, compliance and governance, and financial management.

I have found Maxwell Stephens to be very personable, professional and extremely efficient. The entire process has been enjoyable and exciting which is down to Peter and his team of friendly consultants.

Paul Rich
Centre Manager, CBRE

Why it worked

Both briefs treated operational, financial, compliance and stakeholder responsibilities as a single job rather than a list of nice-to-haves, and the searches were run the same way. Candidates were measured against the whole role and drawn only from people who had already done the equivalent job, whether a multi-site locality remit or a large retail asset, which is the reliable way to find someone who can carry the role without one part of it slipping.

If you are recruiting facilities or property managers for a managing-agent portfolio, a shopping centre or a comparable asset, get in touch with our team.