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Job overview
This is a role which will be key to the Trust’s role as leader and influencer in South East London and to achieving Essentia’s strategic ambitions. The role is highly autonomous and ultimately accountable for interpretations of legal and national policies and interpreting this into a deliverable strategy and operational practice that ensures GSTT sites mechanical infrastructure is fit for purpose, maintained and compliant.
The role will provide professional leadership and assurance for Guys & St Thomas’ mechanical engineering systems, ensuring they are safe, reliable, compliant, and fit for purpose in a healthcare environment. This role, and function exists to safeguard patient and staff wellbeing by overseeing statutory compliance, risk management, and technical standards across all mechanical assets, including ventilation, medical gases, pressure systems, water safety, boilers, and energy systems.
The role holder will be required to act as a senior technical authority, supporting the Executive Director and all other Heads of Service in delivering a robust estates compliance framework, driving continuous improvement in system performance, and contribute to the Trust’s strategic objectives in sustainability, energy efficiency, and service resilience.
As one of the Essentia Leadership Team you will be required to work one weekend every 3 months and be part of the Directorates on-call rota.
Main duties of the job
- Lead the mechanical infrastructure stewardship of the estate, ensuring it is legally compliant, safe and with appropriate levels of resilience.
- Lead the development of mechanical strategies to address GSTT’s legacy of under investment in estate infrastructure and that delivers a safe, healthy, accessible and secure environment for patients, staff and visitors.
- Establish, develop and regularly review strategy, policy, business plans and forecasts relating to all aspects of the role.
- Establish and deliver operational performance (financial and non-financial) targets
- against agreed service standards, including compliance with Financial & Procurement Regulations.
- Continuously monitor and review services; identify and implement service, operational and financial improvements to deliver within allocated budgets, improving value for money, including being responsive to changing business needs.
- Ensure maintenance regimes aligns with SFG20, escalate end-of-life assets for capital replacement, and develop a lifecycle plan for local inspections, maintenance and Authorised Engineer inspections.
- Ensure compliance with all HTMs, HBNs, SFG20, British Standards, PAM and statutory health & safety requirements, including testing programmes and Trust duties relating to infection control, safeguarding, equality, and information governance.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The full job description provides an overview of the key tasks and responsibilities of the role, and the person specification outlines the qualifications, skills, experience and knowledge required. For both overviews, please view the Job Description attachment with the job advert.
Person specification
Knowledge
Essential
- Excellent understanding and specialist knowledge of NHS Health Technical Memoranda (HTM) / Health Building Notes (HBN) requirements.
- Highly developed communication skills, with ability to communicate highly complex information where exceptional influencing skills are required.
- Highly developed leadership skills with the ability to enthuse, motivate and involve individuals and teams, and have them understand the Trust-wide and local performance expectations
- Ability to communicate complex technical, compliance and risk information clearly to clinical, operational, board-level and external audiences.
Additional
Essential
- Commitment to the Essentia Way - working together, doing it well and looking after each other
- Demonstrates commitment to anti-racist, inclusive and equitable leadership practice, including support for disabled and neurodivergent colleagues, people of all gender identities and expressions, and staff from marginalised communities.
Skills & Abilities
Essential
- Extensive track record of effective partnership working with internal and external stakeholders.
- Intellectual flexibility with the ability to cut through ambiguity and complexity and to shape and implement a vision that looks beyond existing structures, ways of working, boundaries and organisations to produce more effective and innovative service delivery models.
- Independent self-starter, able to work with a very high level of autonomy.
- Effective listening skills and the ability to build excellent interpersonal relationships.
- Demonstrable inclusive, anti-racist and values-led leadership, including the ability to create psychologically safe teams, address discriminatory behaviour, and use data and engagement insight to improve fairness, belonging and outcomes for staff and service users, particularly for underrepresented and marginalised groups.
Desirable
- Evidence of leading or sponsoring inclusion, anti-racism or culture change initiatives, with understanding of intersectionality and the impact of inequity on workforce experience and service delivery.
Previous experience
Essential
- Extensive, successful track record of leading mechanical engineering functions within an estates, facilities, infrastructure or similarly complex built environment.
- Experience of organisation-wide policy development, interpreting legislative and other requirements.
- Detailed understanding of the engineering requirements within a complex NHS environment or equivalent highly regulated setting.
Qualifications/ Education
Essential
- Education to Masters degree level in mechanical engineering, alongside substantial specialist mechanical systems training and knowledge.
- Chartered Engineer (CEng)
- Authorised Person/Responsible Person training/qualifications, or equivalent demonstrable competence and experience relevant to appointed duties under Trust technical governance.
- Health and safety qualification (e.g., NEBOSH Diploma, IOSH) or equivalent health and safety knowledge and experience relevant to the role
Desirable
- Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in all of the technical areas within the post holder’s span of control.
Professionals/ Statutory Registration
Essential
- No statutory professional registration is specified for this post; any role-specific Authorised Person/Responsible Person appointments must be supported by competence, training and formal Trust appointment under technical governance.
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Applying for this NHS job
This advert is for Assistant Director Mechanical Infrastructure with Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in London, London, England. It is listed as a Band 8 Estates and facilities role. The advertised salary is £103,102 - £117,560 per annum inc. H.C.A. The contract type is Permanent. The application deadline is 02 Aug 2026.
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