contract manager

Location (Country-County-City) UK-Surrey-Chessington

Job Locations UK-Surrey-Chessington

ID

Employment Type

Full-Time

Offer/Contract Type

No End Date

Location Name

Chessington World of Adventures Resort

Ready to own your craft? We're on the hunt for a Contract Manager. As the Contract Manager you'll be responsible for the day-to-day management and performance of the Integrated Facilities Management (IFM) contract across the attraction ensuring the contract team deliver across cleaning, security, landscaping, and hard FM services.

The role will drive consistent delivery of services against agreed KPIs & SLAs, managing contract variations and controlling associated costs, aligning third-party vendor's operational platforms and processes (financial report, ticketing, CAFM systems, permits to work) with Merlin's internal procedures, ensuring seamless integration, compliance, and accountability.

Key Accountabilities

Operational Oversight

• Manage the IFM contract at a site level with direct ownership of hard services to ensure smooth and efficient day-to-day operations.
• Act as the key interface between vendor teams and internal functional managers ensuring the vendor are delivering to the required standards across all services.
• Ensure the vendors planned works or projects are aligned with attractions events.
• Work with Contract Managers at other sites ensuring alignment in approach across the contract.

Process & Systems Alignment

• Ensure the vendor's ticketing, reporting, and permit-to-work systems are fully integrated with internal platforms.
• Drive consistency and compliance across all workflows (incident management, maintenance requests, escalation routes)

Performance & SLA Management

• Monitor and report on service delivery against agreed SLAs, KPIs, and operational scorecards.
• Maintain monthly performance dashboards to measure outcomes
• Chair monthly contract management meetings, producing reports, improvement plans, and corrective actions.

Vendor Management & Escalations

• Interpret the contract for local implementation and hold the vendor accountable for underperformance, having the influencing prowess to resolve issues prior to issuing formal corrective action plans.
• Escalate recurring or serious performance issues to senior management in line with governance processes.
• Lead investigations into service failures, ensuring root cause analysis and long-term resolution.

Financial & Contract Control

• Manage budgets, validate invoices, and ensure transparent cost tracking.
• Control variations, ensuring compliance with contract terms and approval processes.

• Operational Excellence: Strong track record of vendor performance management, including escalation, dispute resolution, budgetary control, dashboards and Balanced Scorecards. Proven ability to track, measure, and report operational KPIs and SLAs.
• Communication Skills: Excellent communication and influencing skills required, to act as the interface between OCS, Merlin Stakeholders and Merlin Central IFM Governance Team.
• FM Experience: Best practice experience of oversighting Hard FM, Statutory Compliance, CAFM systems, ticketing platforms, and permit-to-work processes.
• Problem-Solving: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to make data-driven decisions.
• Financial Management: Financial management and contract variation experience.

We're growing fast and alongside a fun and friendly environment, we offer a fabulous package and amazing prospects – ideal if you're already fantastic and want to become even better (our magic can help here). Benefits include Pension, Life Assurance, discretionary company bonus, 33 days' holiday including bank holidays, a Merlin Magic Pass which gives you and your friends and family free admission to all of our attractions worldwide, an Enjoy the Ride pass which entitles you and 5 loved ones unlimited entry into your regional attractions, 25% discount in our retail shops and restaurants and 40% discount on LEGO, plus lots more

Competitive