Background
The University of London appointed Maxwell Stephens to recruit an experienced Head of Building Services to provide strategic and technical leadership across its extensive estate.
Reporting to the Director of Facilities Management, the role carried responsibility for engineering maintenance, energy management, sustainability and project services, ensuring the University's buildings remained safe, efficient, compliant and capable of supporting a complex academic environment.
The brief called for someone able to combine deep technical expertise with commercial judgement, project leadership and stakeholder-management skills, while helping the University improve building performance, reduce energy consumption and deliver long-term value across its estate.
Appointments of this kind sit between two candidate markets. Engineering managers with genuine mechanical and electrical depth often have limited exposure to procurement or budget-holding; estates managers comfortable with strategy frequently lack the technical authority to challenge a consultant's design or a contractor's remedial recommendation. A higher-education estate needs both in the same person.
The Challenge
The Head of Building Services role was broad, highly technical and strategically important. The University required a senior engineering professional capable of overseeing complex building systems across multiple sites while contributing to sustainability, capital projects, maintenance planning and procurement.
The requirement covered:
- Engineering and building services leadership. Technical leadership across mechanical and electrical systems, engineering maintenance and wider building-services operations.
- Multi-site maintenance management. Overseeing engineering and maintenance activity across a complex estate and ensuring assets were maintained effectively and reliably.
- Energy management and sustainability. Identifying opportunities to reduce energy consumption, improve efficiency and support the University's wider sustainability objectives.
- Technical appraisal and innovation. Evaluating new technologies and engineering solutions to determine their suitability, performance and long-term value.
- Project management. Leading complex engineering and building-services projects from initial appraisal through procurement, delivery and completion.
- Contract and procurement management. Managing service contracts and procurement activity, and holding suppliers to the quality, performance and value for money expected.
- Compliance and technical assurance. Maintaining engineering and compliance reporting and providing expert mechanical and electrical advice across the estate.
- Budget management. Managing significant engineering, maintenance and project budgets with a firm grip on financial control and whole-life value.
- Stakeholder management. Working closely with Facilities Management colleagues, academic departments, professional services teams and other internal stakeholders.
The last of those is easy to underestimate. On a university estate, engineering work lands in buildings that are in constant use by people who did not schedule it, and a shutdown handled badly costs an estates team hard-won credibility.
Our Approach
Maxwell Stephens worked closely with key University stakeholders to build a detailed understanding of the role's technical requirements, leadership expectations and strategic priorities.
Given the complexity of the appointment, our search concentrated on senior engineering and building services professionals with proven experience across large, technically demanding and multi-site estates. Candidates were assessed on their experience in:
- engineering and building-services leadership
- mechanical and electrical systems
- complex maintenance operations
- energy management and sustainability
- major project delivery
- contract and procurement management
- budgetary control
- technical compliance
- stakeholder engagement
- leadership within changing or ambiguous environments
Particular emphasis was placed on candidates who combined technical depth with strategic thinking. The University needed someone who could make informed engineering decisions, explain them clearly to colleagues without a technical background and lead improvement across a complex estate.
Following a rigorous assessment and selection process, Maxwell Stephens placed an experienced Head of Building Services.
The Outcome
The appointment gave the University of London a senior technical leader capable of strengthening both day-to-day building performance and longer-term estate strategy. The successful candidate brought:
- Engineering leadership. Extensive experience managing complex multi-site engineering operations, giving the University greater technical oversight across its estate.
- Maintenance planning. Strong maintenance-planning expertise, supporting a more structured approach to engineering services and asset performance.
- Energy and sustainability knowledge. The technical grounding to support energy-reduction initiatives and identify efficiency opportunities, with an understanding of energy markets and emerging technologies behind it.
- Project delivery. Extensive project-management experience, strengthening the planning and delivery of engineering and building-services projects across the campus.
- Commercial control. Experience in procurement, contracts and significant budget management, supporting a continued focus on value for money and effective use of resources.
- Technical assurance. Engineering expertise that strengthened technical appraisal, compliance reporting and the provision of specialist M&E advice across the organisation.
- Stakeholder engagement. Confident communication and leadership, enabling the Head of Building Services to work effectively with a wide range of internal stakeholders while navigating competing technical and operational priorities.
Why This Placement Worked
The search was defined by the balance the role demanded rather than by a single discipline. Briefs like this one are often written as engineering appointments and filled accordingly, which leaves the client with a capable technical manager who cannot carry a procurement negotiation or make the case for an energy programme. Written the other way round, they produce a programme manager who defers to contractors on exactly the questions that matter most.
Weighting both halves equally, and assessing against both, produced a Head of Building Services able to balance engineering reliability, project delivery, energy performance, sustainability, compliance and commercial management across a complex higher-education estate.
If you are recruiting a senior engineering or building services leader for an estate where technical authority and strategic judgement matter equally, Maxwell Stephens can help you define the brief realistically and reach the people who genuinely cover it. Get in touch with our team.