Estates & Engineering Appointments for King's College London

About King's College London

Founded in 1829, King's College London (KCL) is a Russell Group university and a leader in education, research and healthcare. It operates across several campuses in central London, with more than 100 buildings of architectural significance and numerous satellite locations, and its estate supports tens of thousands of students, academics, researchers and clinical staff.

The Estates & Facilities Directorate is responsible for keeping that estate safe, compliant and fit for teaching, research and clinical work. Much of it sits in one of the busiest parts of London, many of the buildings are historic, and research and clinical activity depend on building services running without interruption.

Our work with King's College London

Maxwell Stephens has supported King's on senior Estates & Facilities appointments over many years. This page brings together four of them:

• Director of Facilities Management, leading the Estates & Facilities Directorate
• Assistant Director of Engineering, based across the Guy's and St Thomas' campuses at London Bridge
• Associate Director of Engineering Asset Management, Estates and Facilities Directorate
• PFI Manager, New Hunt's House and the Franklin-Wilkins Building

Director of Facilities Management

To improve operational efficiency, keep its environment safe for learning and research and align the estate with its Vision 2029 strategy, King's sought a Director of Facilities Management to lead its Estates & Facilities Directorate across five central London campuses. Maxwell Stephens was engaged to run the search.

A university estate of this kind is among the most demanding facilities briefs in the sector. The Director has to hold together multi-site service delivery, capital planning and compliance alongside day-to-day operations, for a user base of students, academics and professional staff who all expect different things of the estate. The role needed extensive experience of complex, multi-site portfolio management and the strategic perspective to contribute to Vision 2029, not simply keep the buildings running.

We focused on senior estates and facilities professionals whose experience matched the scale and complexity of the portfolio, and assessed operational depth alongside the ability to plan strategically across a large estate. After a rigorous selection process, we placed a Director whose background in senior estates and facilities management brought the strategic and operational experience the brief required. Under the new Director's leadership, King's has:

• improved service delivery metrics across the campuses
• implemented sustainable solutions in line with its environmental commitments
• strengthened resilience and responsiveness through Business Continuity Planning (BCP)

Assistant Director of Engineering

King's appointed Maxwell Stephens to recruit an Assistant Director of Engineering, based primarily across the Guy's and St Thomas' campuses at London Bridge but with strategic responsibility for engineering services across the wider estate, including its other campuses and satellite locations. The role reports to the Director of Operations and sits on the Estates & Facilities Senior Leadership Team.

The brief covered:

• leading a multidisciplinary team of approximately 100 engineers, technicians and support staff
• an annual operational engineering budget of £10 to 15 million
• a capital asset improvement programme of £5 to 15 million a year, plus lifecycle replacement and infrastructure investment
• specialist engineering contractors and maintenance partners
• statutory compliance, critical building services and major refurbishment projects
• engineering strategy aligned to the University's long-term estate plans, sustainability and energy performance

Where research and clinical work depend on uninterrupted building services, the tolerance for engineering failure is far lower than in an office portfolio. Drawing on our knowledge of the University's culture and Estates function, we targeted engineering leaders from Higher Education, Healthcare and similarly complex estates, with M&E, critical infrastructure, budget and contractor management experience. Degree or postgraduate engineering qualifications, Chartered status and membership of bodies such as IWFM, RICS, CIBSE or IET were highly desirable, together with IOSH or NEBOSH.

We placed an Assistant Director of Engineering with extensive experience leading engineering operations across large, technically complex estates, and significant expertise in infrastructure investment, compliance and operational leadership.

Associate Director of Engineering Asset Management

King's also appointed Maxwell Stephens to recruit an Associate Director of Engineering Asset Management within its Estates and Facilities Directorate. The role was to move the University beyond immediate maintenance requirements to a structured, long-term approach to asset performance, investment and lifecycle management: developing asset management plans, improving the reliability and efficiency of engineering infrastructure, keeping practice compliant, weighing energy efficiency in engineering decisions, and coordinating priorities with academic departments and external partners.

These roles are harder to fill than a conventional engineering management post. Many senior engineers are strong on keeping plant running but have never turned an asset register into an investment case, and many strategic estates professionals lack the technical depth to judge asset condition themselves. A university estate, with its mix of teaching, research and specialist buildings, needs both in one person.

We ran a targeted search among senior engineering, estates and asset management professionals from large, technically complex portfolios, with particular weight on candidates who could translate detailed asset information into clear priorities and investment decisions. The appointee developed a more structured approach to engineering asset management, giving a clearer picture of infrastructure condition, performance and longer-term requirements. Lifecycle planning now informs maintenance, replacement and investment priorities rather than reactive decisions, with sustainability built into asset planning and closer coordination with internal and external stakeholders.

PFI Manager

Maxwell Stephens was engaged to recruit a PFI Manager to oversee two of the University's most significant Private Finance Initiative buildings: New Hunt's House and the Franklin-Wilkins Building. The postholder acts as the University's lead representative on all PFI contractual matters, managing relationships with its private sector partners and service providers, monitoring contractual performance, leading capital works and improvement projects, managing budgets and maintaining statutory compliance and health & safety standards.

PFI management is a discipline of its own. The client-side manager does not run the building directly; they hold a long-term contractor to account through the payment and performance mechanisms in the agreement, which means reading the contract as closely as the building. People who have done this well from the client side, rather than simply worked alongside a PFI provider, are a small group.

We searched across the Higher Education, Healthcare, Corporate Real Estate and Public Sector markets for professionals with experience of PFI or major outsourced FM contracts, commercial and contractual capability, project management and compliance knowledge. Every shortlisted candidate went through detailed competency-based interviews. The appointed PFI Manager exceeded the University's requirements, bringing extensive experience in contract management, project delivery, operational leadership and stakeholder engagement.

Client Testimonial

Maxwell Stephens has helped us hire our top 3 performers and most of the directors. The service is great and they always provide high quality candidates. Maxwell Stephens are a joy to work with from a digital and organisational point of view, we have worked with them for over 7 years and we have never fallen out!

Nick O'Donnell
Director of Estates & Facilities, King's College London

Why it worked

Working with King's over many years has given us a detailed understanding of the University's culture and the complexity of its Estates function. Each of these searches weighted technical depth and strategic judgement together: a Director who could translate Vision 2029 into an estates plan, engineering leaders who could manage critical infrastructure and build an investment case for it, and a PFI Manager who could hold a long-term contractor to account through the contract itself.

If you are recruiting a senior estates, engineering or facilities leader for a university or other large, technically demanding estate, Maxwell Stephens can help you define the brief and reach the right candidates. Get in touch with our team.