Design Manager

Design Manager Scotland, Hybrid / Home Based

Permanent - Full Time

Competitive Salary (DOE), plus Car or Car Allowance, Plus Flexible Benefits

Summary:

Freedom is seeking an experienced Design Manager with a strong background in electrical engineering to lead, coordinate, and drive the delivery of complex power and infrastructure projects. This role is not about doing all the design yourself - it is about running the team, directing effort, maintaining focus, and ensuring the right outcomes are delivered at the right time.

The successful candidate will have grown out of an electrical engineering team and now operate confidently as a design leader, capable of managing competing priorities, supporting pre-construction, and acting as the primary design interface with clients.

Some of the key deliverables in this role will include:

• Act as the design lead and focal point for project delivery, coordinating multi-disciplinary electrical design teams and keeping them aligned, focused, and productive.
• organise workloads, prioritise activity, manage interfaces, and ensure the team is working on the right things at the right time.
• Lead and chair client design meetings, acting as a confident and credible representative of the design team and organisation.
• Support Pre-Construction Managers by providing clear design strategies, realistic programmes, input to buildability discussions, and early risk identification.
• Plan, manage, and monitor design delivery to meet programme, quality, and commercial targets, intervening early where progress or focus is at risk.
• Coordinate the production of 11kV / 33kV substation and cable system designs, ensuring outputs are compliant with DNO and National Grid standards.
• Oversee (rather than personally deliver) detailed technical outputs including engineering outputs.
• Provide technical leadership and assurance, challenging design solutions where required and ensuring appropriate checks and reviews are in place.
• Manage design risk, including ownership of design assumptions, residual risks, and CDM Designer / Principal Designer inputs where required.
• Organise the design team for delivery, including resource planning, sequencing of tasks, and coordination with construction and commissioning teams.
• Ensure design deliverables (DIDs, PEPs, BEPs, technical reports, drawings) are produced to the required standard and issued on time.
• Support business development activities by identifying opportunities, shaping technical solutions, and contributing to proposals and tender responses.
• Maintain strong working relationships with clients, contractors, and internal stakeholders, promoting a collaborative and delivery-focused culture.
• Champion SHEQ compliance across the design team and ensure CDM 2015 duties are understood and discharged appropriately.

Why Join Us?

At Freedom, we believe in attracting and retaining the best talent by offering great benefits and career progression opportunities, including:

• Competitive Salary (DOE), plus Car or Car Allowance, Plus Flexible Benefits
• Pension with up to 8% employer contribution
• Sick Pay
• Private Medical Insurance
• Personal Wellbeing and Volunteer Days
• Salary Sacrifice Car Scheme (Hybrid/Electric Vehicle)
• Flexible benefits (e.g., Dental Insurance, Gym Memberships, Tax-Free Bikes)
• Ongoing Training & Development Programme

Next Steps:

As a business, we're on a journey to build on our culture where everyone is included, treated fairly and with respect. This starts with recruitment and how we bring people into the organisation.

We'll do our best to outline the recruitment process to you ahead of time with plenty of notice. If you require any accommodations to participate in the application or interview process, please let us know and we will work with you to ensure your needs are met. About Us

Freedom are part of the NG Bailey Group, one of the leading independent engineering and services businesses in the UK. Founded in 1921, with a turnover of £500m and 3000 employees, we are proud of our history of developing great people through our investment in training.

Working across a variety of sectors within the building and infrastructure industry, our innovative, responsible and forward thinking approach allows us to work on fantastic ground-breaking projects, providing solutions using the latest tools and technologies

Progression is something we value and we will make sure that when you join us you have a clearly defined development path, supported by regular reviews, training and ongoing support to enable you to be the best you can be