Design Office Manager - Contract

Contract Design Office Manager | South Norfolk | £40 per hour | 3 Month Contract | Outside IR35

We're partnering with an established engineering business seeking an experienced Contract Design Office Manager to oversee the planning, coordination, and resource management of its multidisciplinary engineering design function.

Working closely with the Chief Engineer, you'll play a key role in managing workloads across the Mechanical Design, Electrical Design, and Calculations teams, ensuring resources are effectively allocated, projects are appropriately prioritised and engineering activities are delivered on schedule.

Joining a fast-paced engineering environment, you'll use your technical background and planning expertise to improve resource utilisation, manage capacity, and drive efficient project delivery.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage the day-to-day planning and coordination of the Design Office.
• Oversee workload allocation across Mechanical Design, Electrical Design and Calculations teams.
• Develop and maintain resource plans, capacity forecasts and workload schedules.
• Assess engineering workloads and establish realistic delivery timescales.
• Monitor team utilisation, identify bottlenecks and proactively address resource constraints.
• Coordinate engineering activities to ensure delivery against project schedules.
• Work closely with Team Leads, Project Delivery and Engineering Management to manage priorities.
• Track progress, identify delivery risks and resolve scheduling issues.
• Drive improvements in planning processes, resource management and engineering efficiency.

Requirements

• Degree, HNC, HND or equivalent experience in Mechanical, Electrical or a related engineering discipline.
• Significant experience within an engineering or technical design environment.
• Previous experience managing engineering workloads, resource planning or Design Office operations.
• Strong understanding of engineering design and development processes.
• Proven experience in capacity planning, resource allocation and workload scheduling.
• Ability to assess engineering tasks and establish realistic delivery timescales.
• Experience coordinating multidisciplinary engineering teams.
• Strong organisational, communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office and resource planning tools.

Experience within automotive, motorsport, simulation, manufacturing, or other complex engineering environments would be advantageous.

Rate

• £40 per hour
• Outside IR35
• 5 days a week on site in South Norfolk
• 3 month contract with potential for extension

This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced engineering professional to take ownership of design office planning, improve resource utilisation and play a key role in ensuring projects are delivered efficiently and effectively.