Head of Estates Engineering Services – WC2E 9DD
Salary: Competitive based on skills and experienceFull time; 40 hours per week with some flexibility to work evenings and weekends as requiredPermanent positionBased in: Covent Garden, London with hybrid working available
Prior to commencing your application, please review our application guide here.
The Royal Ballet and Opera continues to lead the way in opera, ballet, music and dance both live on stage and through multiple digital platforms, from live streaming to worldwide cinema screenings. Our Covent Garden theatre has been at the heart of London and British cultural life for three centuries. We are home to two world-class Companies:The Royal BalletandThe Royal Opera.
The Royal Opera House describes the place we work, not who we are. The whole is always more than the sum of its parts we may be a House, but three quarters of our audiences experience what we do outside this building. While our Covent Garden theatre is the nerve centre, the impact and influence of the organisation can be felt in every corner of the country, and around the world.
The Estate of the Royal Ballet and Opera comprises three buildings: the main site in Covent Garden includes a 2,000+ seated theatre which dates from 1858, and redeveloped stage and newly developed rehearsal rooms, dressing rooms, workshops offices and ancillary spaces sating from a large-scale capital project completed in 1999, and a second theatre and refreshed front of house spaces delivered via the Open Project in 2018. The RBOs Production Workshop and Costume Centre are located in Thurrock, Essex and a 14,000m2 store in Aberdare, Wales. Together the facilities enable the organisation to deliver a complex and busy production schedule and support the work of staff, artists and creatives to stage opera and ballet to exacting standards.
This is an exciting role, heading up a newly structured Engineering division, and working with a broad range of skilled professionals. We are looking for a candidate who can offer robust people management experience to ensure that their direct reports and team members have the requisite skills and knowledge through training and coaching to achieve consistently high standards of performance. They will have excellent communication skills and the ability to translate highly technical information into digestible chunks for other stakeholders.
Our ideal candidate will be/have:
- A degree qualified engineer/building professional, or proven competence through practical experience
- A detailed knowledge of the working practices and demands of a large complex public building, with previous knowledge and experience of maintaining buildings of historic, heritage importance.
- Extensive working knowledge of statutory compliance within a medium to large, diverse and complex estate.
- A strong budgetary understanding and control with the ability to deliver to budget and deadlines.
- Strong project management skills, with a track record of taking and accepting responsibility for projects and initiatives.
- The ability to react quickly to situations, to be reliable and resilient, to perform consistently under pressure and to respond positively to changing circumstances.
The Royal Ballet and Opera is one of the UKs leading arts organisations and our aim is to inspire imagination, ignite emotion and make the extraordinary for everyone. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion underpin all that we do. We want our people to be representative of the diversity in the UK. We understand the creativity and innovation that diversity can bring and strive to create an inclusive environment in which everyone can thrive.
We encourage applications from people with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and skills to join our teams. We particularly welcome applications from those who arefrom a global majority background and/or those who aredisabled,as they are under-represented within our organisation.
We are a Disability Confident Employer, which means that we are actively working to ensure that candidates with disabilities and long-term health conditions feel supported, engaged and able to fulfil their potential in the workplace. We will endeavour to offer an interview to candidates who tell us they wish to participate in the scheme and who demonstrate in their application that they meet the essential criteria for the role, though sometimes due to the volume of qualified candidates with declarations this is not possible.
The RBO is also committed to safeguarding and protecting all children, young people, and adults and we implement robust safer recruitment practices. Due to our safeguarding promise, certain roles will be subject to a DBS check before commencing employment with us, which will be indicated in the advertising.
A full job description can be found here.
For more information about working with the Royal Ballet and Opera, please review the info pack here.
For a list of potential reasonable adjustments, please review this guidance document. If you have any access requirements for your application, please contact the RBO Recruitment Team onhr.recruitment@roh.org.uk
If you are applying as an internal candidate, you might find this guidance document helpful.
Closing date for applications: 11:59pm, Tuesday 30th June 2026.
To ensure a fair process, late applications will not be considered under any circumstances.
Applicants must have work authorisation for the UK. No agencies.
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