Head of Estates

Job details

• Job reference: 251621
• Salary: Band 8B (£76,888 - £82,251)
• Job closing date: 02/07/2026
• Job Type: Support Services
• Location: Stirling Health and Care Village
• Employment type: Permanent
• Hours Per Week: 36
• Job posted date: 18/06/2026
• Employer (NHS Board): NHS Forth Valley
• Department: Estates & Capital Planning

NHS Forth Valley is seeking an experienced, highly motivated Head of Estates to lead the effective management of our estate across all sites. This is a key senior leadership role within the Facilities Directorate, responsible for ensuring that our hospitals, health centres, and other settings are safe, resilient, fit for purpose.

You will play a pivotal role in shaping and delivering NHS Forth Valley’s Estates service, supporting our commitment to high‑quality care, and continuous improvement across the estate.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership for all Estates functions, ensuring a safe, compliant, and efficient built environment across the estate.
• Lead and develop planned and reactive maintenance services, ensuring continuity of operations in a complex 24/7 healthcare environment.
• Ensure compliance with statutory, regulatory, and NHS Scotland technical requirements.
• Oversee a diverse portfolio of minor capital and backlog maintenance projects, ensuring robust governance, value for money, and high‑quality outcomes.
• Lead, support, and inspire engineering, maintenance, and technical teams, promoting a culture of professionalism, accountability, and staff wellbeing.
• Provide expert advice to senior leadership, clinical services, project boards, and external partners.
• Ensure effective financial and resource management, including budget planning, monitoring, and reporting.
• Build and maintain strong working relationships with clinical teams, operational managers, external contractors, and regulatory bodies.

About You

We are looking for a strategic Estates professional with strong operational credibility and excellent leadership skills. The ideal candidate will bring:

• A relevant Estates related degree to Masters level (or equivalent experience).
• Significant experience managing complex Estates or Facilities functions, ideally within the NHS or a similar large‑scale environment.
• Strong working knowledge of healthcare technical standards, compliance frameworks and engineering systems.
• PPP/DBFM contract monitoring experience.
• Demonstrable experience leading multidisciplinary technical teams.
• A track record of delivering capital projects and infrastructure improvements is desirable.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and stakeholder‑management skills.
• A forward‑thinking, collaborative approach aligned with NHS values.

The duties of this post require the successful candidate to be a member of the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) Scheme. More information on this scheme can be found at www.disclosurescotland.co.uk

For informal enquiries, please contact:Morag Farquhar, Director of Facilities: morag.farquhar@nhs.scot

As from 1/4/26, the Agenda for Change full-time working week will be reducing from 37 to 36 hours per week. Part time hours will be reduced pro-rata. However, there will be a corresponding increase in the hourly rate so that pay will not be affected.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applicants who require sponsorship to work in the UK are advised to carefully review the eligibility criteria for the Skilled Worker or Health and Care Worker visa routes. NHS Forth Valley may be able to offer sponsorship for certain roles, provided the post meets the minimum salary threshold and any other required criteria. If you are currently working in the UK on a Skilled Worker visa, transitional arrangements may apply. Please note that sponsorship is not guaranteed and is assessed on a case-by-case basis following interview and at the commencement of pre-employment checks. For further information on visa requirements and sponsorship eligibility, please refer to the UK Government guidance.

It is also recommend that anyone applying for health and social care jobs in the UK from abroad read the following guidance: Applying for health and social care jobs in the UK from abroad - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Candidates should provide original and authentic responses to all questions within the application form. The use of artificial intelligence (AI), automated tools, or other third-party assistance to generate, draft, or significantly modify responses is strongly discouraged. By submitting your application, you confirm that all answers are your own work, reflect your personal knowledge, skills and experience, and have not been solely produced or altered by AI or similar technologies. Failure to comply with this requirement may result in your application being withdrawn from the application process.

Please note that the majority of correspondence is sent by e-mail, therefore please check your e-mail regularly (including junk folders) and your Jobtrain account for updates.

NHS Forth Valley is positive about disabled people and is committed to offering an interview to disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the job. Please contact the Recruitment Office on 0330 041 4694 if there are any reasonable adjustments we can make to assist you with your application and/or interview.

NHS Scotland is committed to encouraging equality and diversity among our workforce and eliminating unlawful discrimination. The aim is for our workforce to be truly representative and for each employee to feel respected and able to give their best. To this end, NHS Scotland welcomes applications from all sections of society.