Hackney Schools FM Contract Manager Placement

Background

Maxwell Stephens was engaged by Mouchel Babcock Education to place an experienced FM Contract Manager, seconded to its Facilities Management contracts team to deliver services for its end client, the London Borough of Hackney.

The appointment involved overseeing FM service delivery across eight schools within the London Borough of Hackney, with responsibility for coordinating site teams, managing external service providers and ensuring consistent standards across a complex education estate. The role required strong operational control, supplier management and stakeholder coordination to maintain safe, reliable and well-managed environments for pupils, staff and visitors.

The Challenge

School estates are unforgiving places to run facilities services. The buildings are in intensive use during term time, most planned work has to fit into holidays, and every failure — a heating fault, a missed clean, an unresolved defect — is felt immediately by pupils, teachers and parents. Add several sites, each with its own on-site team and its own head, and the contract manager's job becomes as much about coordination and communication as about maintenance.

The person in this role therefore needed to be comfortable holding a wide range of suppliers to account while keeping eight school communities confident that their buildings were being looked after.

Role Responsibilities

• Multi-site FM management. Managed and coordinated eight Facilities Management site teams, overseeing day-to-day activities and ensuring services were delivered consistently across each school.
• Service provider management. Monitored external suppliers and contractors responsible for a broad range of building services, including cleaning, deliveries, planned preventive maintenance, reactive maintenance, grounds maintenance, decoration, CCTV and wider contractor works.
• Health, safety and compliance. Maintained oversight of health and safety requirements across the sites, ensuring FM activities were delivered in line with agreed standards and school requirements.
• School set-up and operational support. Supported the preparation and day-to-day operation of school environments, coordinating FM activities so that facilities were ready, functional and properly maintained.
• Defects and project coordination. Worked closely with Design & Build project managers to manage and complete defect works across eight schools, coordinating external contractors and ensuring outstanding issues were addressed within appropriate timescales.

The Outcome

Through structured management and proactive oversight, the placement helped improve the consistency, responsiveness and efficiency of Facilities Management services across the Hackney school estate:

• Improved multi-site service delivery. Streamlined day-to-day FM operations across the schools, creating greater consistency and better coordination of site teams and service providers.
• More proactive maintenance. Strengthened maintenance planning and contractor management, reducing disruption and improving the reliability of school facilities.
• Stronger supplier coordination. Improved communication between internal FM teams, external service providers and contractors, supporting more effective delivery of both planned and reactive works.
• Effective defect management. Worked alongside Design & Build teams to progress defect works across eight schools, improving contractor responsiveness and supporting the timely resolution of outstanding building issues.
• Consistent performance against service standards. Kept a clear focus on service levels, operational responsiveness and client requirements, helping the FM function meet agreed standards and support the smooth running of each school.

Why This Placement Worked

The placement shows what Maxwell Stephens looks for in Facilities Management professionals who can deliver complex, multi-site FM contracts within demanding public-sector and education environments: people who treat supplier management and site communication as core skills rather than administration, and who can keep several sites moving at once without letting standards drift between them.

If you are looking for an experienced FM Contract Manager to improve service delivery across a multi-site estate, Maxwell Stephens can help you define the brief and reach candidates with the right operational track record. Get in touch with our team.