Main Responsibilities
The Assistant Head of Estates role leads their team, oversees, and manages a wide range of programmes and services alongside the provision of subject matter expert advice and communications with all key stakeholders.
The Key activities for the role are:
• Leasehold acquisition and lease management of residential property (currently ca 1300 properties held under 900 leases) across Europe and Turkey for MOD personnel and their families.
• Provision of professional property advice (related to the Leasehold residential portfolio) to the MOD across its entire overseas portfolio (additionally including Kenya and Nepal).
• Provision of professional property advice to the British Defence Section US Accommodation Support Team in Washington DC and management of 15 Freehold residential properties in USA.
• Estates focal point for MOD Overseas Accommodation Policy in terms of interpretation, advice and contribution to Accommodation Policy reviews.
• Delivery of Estates Specialist Teams - Overseas Professional Assurance and ‘Special Projects’.
• Close collaboration with DIO colleagues on the Accommodation Team, who are responsible for allocation, occupation management, soft and hard Facilities Management.
• Leadership and development of a geographically dispersed, remote professional team.
Location
The role is based at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire and the successful candidate will be expected to attend on a weekly basis in the office for face-to-face meetings and collaboration. The role will involve occasional travel to sites within their region (in particular Mons in Belgium, Naples in Italy and Washington DC in USA) for meetings and/or site inspections and occasionally UK-wide.
If travelling outside your base location for duty reasons, you will have access to flights, hire cars, rail tickets and overnight accommodation. You can also claim 45 pence per mile should you choose to use your own vehicle for business travel.
Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. This is a non-contractual arrangement where all office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to capacity and any required workplace adjustments. Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD office, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements.
DIO Business Area – Estates
The Defence estate is one of the largest landholdings in the UK and covers an estimated 1.8% of the UK land mass (200,000+ ha). This is complemented by a significant UK Defence presence overseas.
Estates are the in-house real estate team within the DIO (part of the UK Ministry of Defence) supporting infrastructure needs across a high-profile Public Estate. We acquire, manage, safeguard, and dispose of Defence real estate. Our unique customer knowledge and insight of the Defence Estate enables our in-house team of property professionals to provide in-depth advice to our Military customers.
The Team
DIO Estates - Specialist Teams includes Chartered Surveyors, Registered Valuers and Safeguarding Officers who, between them, provide comprehensive land, estate and property management services to the Overseas Estate, Estate wide Valuation & Rating Services and Safeguarding of Defence assets and operational capabilities.
The Overseas Team provides the full range of DIO Estates services globally (across 50+ countries) including much of Europe, Cyprus and Gibraltar and further afield such as Kenya, Nepal and the US. The Overseas Team HQ is at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire, but also has staff located in 10 overseas offices providing the opportunity to live and work abroad, playing a hands-on role managing UK MOD interests held under Lease, Licence and Inter-Government Agreement, or delivering these from the UK, supplemented by periodic travel. An ability to cultivate local partnerships and an expeditionary approach in this team are a must.
This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.