Graduate Design Managers - Summer / Autumn 2025 starts

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Company Description

Work with Us. Change the World.

At AECOM, we're delivering a better world. Whether improving your commute, keeping the lights on, providing access to clean water, or transforming skylines, our work helps people and communities thrive. We are the world's trusted infrastructure consulting firm, partnering with clients to solve the world's most complex challenges and build legacies for future generations.

There has never been a better time to be at AECOM. With accelerating infrastructure investment worldwide, our services are in great demand. We invite you to bring your bold ideas and big dreams and become part of a global team of over 50,000 planners, designers, engineers, scientists, digital innovators, program and construction managers and other professionals delivering projects that create a positive and tangible impact around the world.

We're one global team driven by our common purpose to deliver a better world. Join us.

Job Description

About our team:

At AECOM we recognise that the management and coordination of the design of major, complex, multi-disciplinary projects, presents a number of significant challenges. Our Design Management service, which is part of AECOM's Asset Advisory business, is tailored specifically to meeting these challenges and enables the designers to focus on the design, whilst we establish and implement the systems and procedures that facilitate successful delivery. This includes ensuring that there is clear definition of scope, promoting good communication, driving coordination, monitoring design quality, actively managing the client and stakeholder approvals processes, monitoring progress and ultimately delivering reduced design risk, greater programme certainty and increased quality of service.

Here's what you'll do:

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:

Working alongside a Design Manager to provide support to AECOM Design Teams and external architects by providing assistance with the management of the design process in London, the UK and internationally.

The Graduate Design Manager will be expected to support the Design Manager with the following tasks:

Managing Sub-consultants

• Prepare responsibility matrix to identify sub-consultant responsibility for each area of scope.
• Draft and distribute sub-consultant back-to-back contracts so that all scope is accounted for.
• Manage updates to sub-consultant contracts and prepare final documents.
• Prepare and update cash flow projections.
• Establish procedures for invoice submission for sub-consultants and monitor.
• Track and report on the progress of all sub-consultant invoices and prepare a monthly Financial Report.

Establish and Manage Design Procedures

• Establish and implement design procedures and protocols to be followed by the Design Team necessary for successful project delivery.
• Procedures shall be collated in a project handbook called 'Design Team Procedures'. The Design Team Procedures document will include information such as organisation charts, Project Directory, communication routes etc. We propose that the document is issued to the Client team also.
• Management of any information exchange including monitoring of deliverables issued by sub-consultants to determine whether submittals are as per agreed scopes.
• Monitoring Design Schedule and Progress
• Produce an integrated design schedule following liaison with all Design Team members and including key milestones laid out by the Client. Internal milestones, co-ordination sequences and delivery dates will be shown.
• Monitor design progress and identify areas of risk/ concern that are approaching.
• Identification of design deliverables, who they will be prepared by and when they need to be delivered.

Documentation and Deliverables

• Prepare reports in the necessary format as required.
• Monitor and collate comments from the Client on design submission and manage responses from the Design Team.
• Track and monitor status of all comments affecting design stage and final close-out.
• Prepare and maintain drawing register.
• Manage project websites where necessary.
• Organising Project Meetings and the Decision Making Process
• Prepare and agree with the Architect a schedule for all project workshops and meetings, including a preliminary outline agenda, location etc.
• Prepare in advance a formal timetable and agenda for all project workshops and obtain all necessary input from the Design Team to ensure all key issues are addressed.
• Prepare and issue minutes of all major project workshops and meetings, circulate these minutes for comment before formal issue to the Client where applicable.
• Establish procedures and processes to assist in the briefing and information gathering process such as a Request for Information (RFI) system. Responsibilities and roles of decision making to be identified.

The Quality Assurance/Quality Management System

• It is expected that the jobholder will contribute and participate positively in the Performance Review process, which underpins the firms approach to developing all staff. This will include taking ownership of agreed actions, including pursuing any training opportunities identified. Similarly, specific objectives will be agreed with the jobholder as part of the performance review process and they should assume responsibility for the delivery of these.

The Graduate Design Manager will be mentored by a Design Manager and fully supported on a training and development programme.

Enjoy the Perks.

At AECOM, you'll enjoy a range of core and personalised benefits designed to support your future and well-being, customised to fit your lifestyle. Take advantage of career development opportunities, our flexible hybrid working model to ensure a work-life balance that suits your lifestyle, technical practice networks, AECOM University, and volunteering days.

Here is what you will get from us!

Early Careers Training Programme:

Our Early Careers Training Programme (ADVANCE), along with our huge scope of projects across the globe, will challenge and inspire you to make a real difference to the world we live in. Our ADVANCE Programme forms a core part of our business strategy globally, designed to develop the best talent across numerous disciplines to lead our business into the future. We have over 750 graduates on our programmes across the UK & Ireland, from over 40 different disciplines, each and every one of them making a tangible difference to the environment we all live and work in.

We will provide you with all the tools and support you need to achieve your professional development ambitions, including Chartership with the relevant international professional institution - where we have graduates working towards over 30 professional institutions in the UK & Ireland. We will push you to achieve the highest standards and expect our graduates to pass their professional review first time. You will be assigned a mentor to support and guide your development, and undertake regular training modules throughout the programme. There will be on-the-job technical development and classroom training where required, and the opportunity to work on live client projects, with significant multi-disciplinary exposure.

Qualifications

Ready to push the limits of what's possible?

Here's what we're looking for:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree (min 2.1 or equivalent) in Architecture or a relevant degree that demonstrates an understanding of the design and construction process.

Skills:

• Understanding of the design process
• Project and design programming skills
• Excellent communication skills
• Commercial awareness of projects

We celebrate diversity, including neurodiversity, and believe it enriches our team. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and abilities. If you are an applicant with a disability that requires reasonable accommodation to complete the application process, please contact us at ReasonableAdjustments@aecom.com. At AECOM, we value everyone's unique contributions and perspectives.

Additional Information

Applicants are encouraged to apply as early as possible since CVs will be reviewed, and candidates selected on a rolling recruitment basis for an advanced offer start. Please include a covering letter with your application and provide all predicted and/or obtained academic grades.

You must have permanent right to work in the UK as we unable to offer visa sponsorship for this position.

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About AECOM

AECOM is the world's trusted infrastructure consulting firm, delivering professional services throughout the project lifecycle - from advisory, planning, design and engineering to program and construction management. On projects spanning transportation, buildings, water, new energy and the environment, our public- and private-sector clients trust us to solve their most complex challenges. Our teams are driven by a common purpose to deliver a better world through our unrivaled technical and digital expertise, a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion, and a commitment to environmental, social and governance priorities. AECOM is a Fortune 500 firm and its Professional Services business had revenue of $14.4 billion in fiscal year 2023. See how we are delivering sustainable legacies for generations to come at aecom.com and @AECOM.

Freedom to Grow in a World of Opportunity

You will have the flexibility you need to do your best work with hybrid work options. Whether you're working from an AECOM office, remote location or at a client site, you will be working in a dynamic environment where your integrity, entrepreneurial spirit and pioneering mindset are championed.

You will help us foster a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion - a safe and respectful workplace, where we invite everyone to bring their whole selves to work using their unique talents, backgrounds and expertise to create transformational outcomes for our clients.

AECOM provides a wide array of compensation and benefits programs to meet the diverse needs of our employees and their families. We also provide a robust global well-being program. We're the world's trusted global infrastructure firm, and we're in this together - your growth and success are ours too.

Join us, and you'll get all the benefits of being a part of a global, publicly traded firm - access to industry-leading technology and thinking and transformational work with big impact and work flexibility. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.