Pre Construction Manager

Wates Group have an exciting opportunity for a Pre‑Construction Manager to join our Residential team in London, leading multiple existing and upcoming residential developments.

This role is critical to the success of our work‑winning strategy, providing leadership across pre‑construction activities and ensuring opportunities are aligned to the Residential business growth plan and Group governance requirements.

As Pre‑Construction Manager, you will take accountability for leading tenders in line with agreed bid strategy, ensuring a holistic and customer‑focused approach is adopted throughout. You will work closely with internal stakeholders and senior leaders to shape winning strategies, ensure governance is upheld and drive continuous improvement in how we approach bidding and preferred bidder activity.

As a Pre‑Construction Manager, you will:

• Provide leadership to project bid teams in accordance with Wates strategy, ensuring pre‑construction programmes and outputs are delivered to plan.
• Take a holistic view of each bid, ensuring commercial, technical, programme, risk and quality considerations are fully aligned.
• Ensure all bids and gateway approvals are undertaken in full compliance with Wates governance.
• Engage with functional leads and the Senior Leadership Team to agree and manage bid teams, flexing resources to suit specific tender requirements.
• Produce, own and implement individual project bid strategies and customer plans.
• Support work‑winning activity through preferred bidder stage, including client engagement and second‑stage negotiations.

About you:

You will be an experienced Pre‑Construction Manager with a strong track record of working across a variety of residential project types, sizes and procurement routes. You'll bring credibility, leadership and confidence to the role, with the ability to influence internal teams and engage effectively with clients.

To be successful, you will demonstrate:

• Proven experience within a pre‑construction or work‑winning environment
• Excellent communication and client‑facing skills
• Strong understanding of governance, compliance and approval processes
• The ability to lead multi‑disciplinary teams and drive successful bid outcomes

Our commitments:  

Wates is proud to be an employer where anyone can thrive, and we welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds.  We encourage you to apply even if you don't meet every requirement, as we value transferable skills and assess all applications fairly.

We don't discriminate based on a criminal record; all applications are reviewed on an individual basis against the requirements of the role. Some roles may require additional checks, due to the nature of the work.  As a Disability Confident Leader, we offer an interview to applicants with a disability who meet the minimum criteria for the role and opt in to the Disability Confident scheme.  Reasonable adjustments are available, please contact us at recruitment@wates.co.uk