Technical Pre-Construction Manager

Technical Pre-Construction Manager, Bespoke Projects
Finnmark Sauna | Spennymoor, County Durham, with UK-wide travel | £50,000–£55,000 + benefits

Finnmark designs and builds authentic Finnish saunas and steam rooms. Our Bespoke Projects Division turns over £4m a year and has completed more than 400 commissions. They range from private homes, pool houses and garden retreats to some of the most ambitious wellness spaces in the country, including the UK’s largest sauna at ARC Canary Wharf and the tallest at the Shangri-La at The Shard.

Nothing we build is adapted from a standard model. Every sauna is designed to the millimetre for one client and one space, and every one is built to the same uncompromising construction principles. A Finnmark sauna has to look exceptional, but it also has to breathe, hold its heat, manage moisture and perform safely for decades. That comes down to decisions made long before anyone picks up a tool.

We’re now creating our first Technical Pre-Construction Manager to own those decisions.

The role

You’ll be the technical authority on every bespoke project, from the moment a design starts to take shape to the moment it’s handed to our installation team. Your remit covers specification, estimating, internal MEP sign-off and Building Regulations compliance. Above all, you’ll be responsible for making sure that what we’ve sold, what we’ve designed, what we’ve programmed, what our workshop has made and what arrives on site are all exactly the same thing.

Around 80% of our bespoke work is domestic, for private clients, architects and interior designers. The other 20% is commercial, for hotels, spas, sports clubs and members’ clubs. These commercial jobs are fewer but much larger, often delivered as a specialist package within a main contractor’s build.

Specification: setting the standard from the start

Our saunas are built to standards, not a rule book: a defined set of construction principles covering ventilation, insulation, vapour control, heater and control systems specification, glazing, timber selection, benching and detailing. You’ll apply those standards to every bespoke project, defining each sauna’s build-up and construction detail so that the specification is right from the very first drawing, not corrected later.

This is the most important part of the role. The specification set early in a project determines its cost, its performance and its viability. Get it right and everything downstream follows. Get it wrong and the cost shows up on site, where it’s most expensive to fix. You’ll be the custodian of the Finnmark standard, and you’ll help refine our delivery as we learn from every project.

Estimating

At the moment, pricing is shared between our sales and project management teams, working from our designers’ output. You’ll bring it together into a single, rigorous function. You’ll produce accurate fixed-price quotations built directly from the specification and your excellent understanding of construction, so every price reflects what we will actually build. You’ll also build the cost library, rates and templates that make our pricing consistent and defensible.

MEP sign-off and Building Regulations

You’ll provide internal sign-off on the mechanical, electrical and plumbing requirements of every project. That includes electrical supplies, isolation and controls, heat-rated lighting, ventilation strategies and mechanical extract, steam room water feeds, drainage and tanking, and flues for wood-burning heaters. You’ll make sure each requirement is confirmed, coordinated with the client’s electrician, M&E consultant or main contractor, and clearly assigned before we commit. You’ll also make sure every design meets the relevant Building Regulations, including fire, ventilation, electrical safety and energy.

Data hygiene and handover

A bespoke project passes through many hands: sales, design, programme, workshop and installation. Information that is lost, out of date or held in someone’s head at any of those stages becomes a problem on site. You’ll keep the project record clean and current throughout. That means changes are captured, versions are controlled, and every team works from the same information.

That work comes together in a highly accurate picklist and a complete handover package for our installations team: specification, drawings, MEP responsibilities, site constraints, materials and programme. When a crew is hundreds of miles from Spennymoor, a missing component or an unresolved detail means an expensive return visit. Your job is to prevent those visits long before anything is loaded onto the van.

Who you’ll work with

You’ll work closely with our Project Managers. Between you, you’ll see every project from two viewpoints: theirs focused on delivery, programme and the client, yours focused on technical and commercial accuracy. Together, you’ll clear obstacles and resolve bottlenecks across the business before they become problems.

You’ll also work alongside our Operations Manager, a fellow single-seat manager who keeps the whole division running smoothly and oversees compliance across everything we do. The three roles together form the backbone of how our bespoke projects are delivered.

What you’ll bring

You’ll have excellent technical construction knowledge, grounded in a broad understanding of how buildings are put together and how they perform, and a solid foundational understanding of MEP design principals and specification. You’ll have at least five years in a client-facing or main-contractor-facing technical construction role, ideally in specialist fit-out, high-end joinery or shopfitting, luxury residential, or wellness and leisure construction. You’ll be confident specifying systems and taking responsibility for MEP and estimating, and you’ll read drawings fluently. You’ll be organised, precise and disciplined about information, and you’ll understand that small errors early in a project lead to large costs later. You’ll be equally comfortable advising a private client, challenging an architect’s detail or agreeing an interface with a main contractor’s M&E team. A full UK driving licence is essential. Sauna experience isn’t required; this is ours to teach.

Why Finnmark

This is a newly created role at the centre of a respected specialist, working on projects most contractors never get the chance to touch. You’ll shape how we specify, price and hand over every bespoke sauna we build, and as the division grows, so will the function you lead.

If you believe the best projects are won in the details long before they reach site, we’d like to hear from you.

Pay: £50,000.00-£55,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Casual dress
• Employee discount
• Flexitime
• Free parking
• On-site parking

Work Location: In person