Senior Buildings Operations Manager - Real Estate (m/f/d)
About this role
Job Description
Aberdeen Investments is part of Aberdeen Group plc, one of the UK’s leading Wealth & Investments groups.
Strengthening talent and culture is one of our strategic priorities. We strive to make Aberdeen a great place to work so that we can attract and retain the industry’s best talent.
Our people put our stakeholders at the heart of everything they do by helping us to make a positive difference to the lives of our clients, customers, colleagues, shareholders and society.
We are repositioning our specialist asset management business to meet client demand and are committed to providing excellent client service, supported by leading technology and talent.
As a global business, Aberdeen consists of three divisions: Investments, Adviser, and interactive investor (ii). Each division is dedicated to meeting and adapting to our clients' evolving needs.
In European markets, our dedicated and highly experienced investment team manages our European products, including emerging market income and debt, smaller companies, European credit, ETFs, real estate and sustainable investing propositions.
We have offices in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. Our breadth of experience gives us close proximity to the companies we invest in and the markets we operate in.
About the Department
Aberdeen manages over €63bn of real assets globally, with real estate representing the largest component at €45bn of assets under management. The real estate platform spans direct, indirect and listed strategies across multiple jurisdictions and sectors, requiring strong technical governance, operational resilience and regulatory compliance to support long‑term value creation.
About the Role
The Senior Building Operations Manager is a specialist, independent technical oversight role within the real estate asset management platform.
The role is responsible for providing expert challenge and assurance across asset condition, technical compliance, facilities management performance and operational risk. It ensures that assets are safe, compliant, well maintained and fit for purpose, allowing Asset Managers to focus on value creation, strategy and transactions rather than day‑to‑day operational risk.
Working alongside Asset Management, Property Management, Development teams and external FM providers, the role provides technical governance, early risk identification and consistent standards across the portfolio.
Responsibilities
- Maintenance and Inspection Planning
- Verification that the PM provides complete and reliable maintenance and inspection plans
- Monitoring timely execution of preventive maintenance
- Spot checks of maintenance logs, evidence, and technical reports
- Capex and Maintenance Budget
- Review of annual capex budgets and plausibility checks of technical cost items
- Actual‑vs‑budget comparisons for maintenance costs
- Analysis of budget overruns, including root‑cause evaluation
- Ensuring correct capex classification
- Facility‑Management Oversight
- Monitoring the overall performance of FM providers, based on agreed service levels and contractual obligations
- Review of FM reports, service tickets, and recurring issues to identify patterns and risk areas
- Verification that preventive and corrective FM activities are properly organized, documented, and escalated where needed
- Ensuring clear coordination between FM providers and Property Managers, including responsiveness and service quality
- Technical Compliance and Safety
- Monitoring statutory inspection requirements (e.g., elevators, fire safety, electrical checks)
- Ensuring timely completion by the Property Managers
- Review of documentation, deficiency reports, and acceptance protocols
- Quality of Technical Reporting & PM Reporting
- Review of technical monthly and quarterly reports
- Verification of defined technical KPIs (e.g., maintenance completion rate, time to remedy defects)
- Feedback to PMs including deviation lists• Project Oversight (Monitoring, not Project Management)
- Plausibility checks of major technical measure
- Review of cost estimates, technical specifications, and tender documents
- Verification of project completion documentation and technical records
- About the Candidate:
- Above-average academic degree with a focus on building operations (e.g., Facility Management, Real Estate Management, or Building Services Engineering)
- At least 8 years of relevant professional experience in a facility or property management environment
- Strong analytical capabilities combined with sound commercial and financial acumen
- In-depth knowledge of statutory inspection requirements, safety standards, and regulatory compliance
- Experience in performance management, including KPI tracking, reporting, and quality assurance
- Proven ability to manage and oversee external service providers and ensure contractual performance
- Good understanding of technical project environments, particularly with regard to cost evaluation, specifications, and documentation
- Excellent communication skills, with a confident and assertive approach to stakeholder management
- Fluency in both German and English, written and spoken
- We are proud to be a Disability Confident Committed employer. If you have a disability and would like to apply to one of our UK roles under the Disability Confident Scheme, please notify us by completing the relevant section in our candidate questionnaire. One of our team will reach out to support you through your application process.
- Our business
- Enabling our clients to be better investors drives everything we do. Our business is structured around three distinct areas – our vectors of growth – focused on our clients’ changing needs. You can find out more about what we do
- here
- .
- An inclusive way of working
- Whatever way you like to work, if you have the talent and commitment to join our team, we’d like to hear from you.
- At Aberdeen we’ve adopted a ‘blended working’ approach. This approach combines the benefits of face-to-face collaboration, coaching and connecting in our offices with the flexibility of working from home. It enables colleagues to find a balance that works for their roles, their teams, our clients and our business.
- An inclusive culture
- , where diverse perspectives drive our actions, is at the core of who we are and what we do. If you need assistance with your application, or a reasonable adjustment to your interview arrangements – for example, because you are neurodivergent, or have a physical, sensory, cognitive, mental, visible or invisible disability – please let us know and we’ll be happy to help.
- We’re committed to providing an inclusive workplace where all forms of difference are valued and which is free from any form of unfair or unlawful treatment. We define diversity in its broadest sense – this includes but is not limited to our diversity of educational and professional backgrounds, experience, cognitive and neurodiversity, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, religion or belief and ethnicity and geographical provenance. We support a culture that values meritocracy, fairness and transparency and welcomes enquiries from everyone.
- If you need assistance or an adjustment due to a disability please let us know as part of your application and we will assist.