Principal Estate Surveyor/Lead Professional

West Sussex County Council (WSCC) is a diverse organisation that provides services to more than 850,000 residents every day. Our teams use their experience to enable and challenge the Council to deliver improved efficiency and effectiveness. The management of the Council’s property estate plays a significant part in the delivery of its services and is vital to the operation of the Council. The delivery of income and capital receipts from property assets also plays an important role.

About the job

The Valuation and Estates Team within the Property and Assets Directorate provides a value for money, high quality and professional service delivering all West Sussex County Council’s property needs. The team manages the complete life cycle of property ownership of the County Council, this ranges from the acquisition of land and buildings and their subsequent management, through to disposal, and involves liaison with other teams, the counties operational services, estate agents, tenants, lessees and property owners. 

Salary: £61,971 - £66,682
Location: Northleigh, Chichester County Hall, Chichester

Working Pattern: Full Time, 37 hours per week Monday - Friday

You will need to be able to travel independently around the county, including to areas that may not be easily accessible by public transport. Pool cars and pool bikes are available.

About the role

As the Lead Valuation Professional, you will be  the leading principal specialist in the valuation and estates professional field, offering advice and acting as the principal an “expert” in all matters relating to property, including property disposals and acquisitions, development projects, overseeing asset valuations, the granting of leases, licenses, easements and other property transactions. You’ll be responsible for managing and delivering an estate and valuation service across a broad range of property assets.

The County Council portfolio comprises over 300 schools and leased academies, 35 libraries, 28 fire stations, 8 highway depots, and over 250,000 sq. ft of office space together with 1,100 acres of agricultural land and smallholdings. With over 900 property locations, the total asset value is in excess of £1.6 billion.

As a technical specialist, you will be instrumental in managing the most complex property projects, either working alongside internal service teams, senior management of partner organisations or through direct project management of externally appointed consultants.

You’ll need to build and maintain positive, effective relationships and influence activities including working across and outside of the organisation, meeting with senior officers from other organisations, County Council elected Members, school management teams, developers, property owners, external consultants or estate agents, tenants legal colleagues and other Council teams. The role will lead on delivering significant capital receipts and income generation for the County Council.

You will be required to supervise staff, and to advise and train other team members on aspects of the Role and their professional development as a surveyor. The postholder supports the Head of Service in relation to team management and deputises for all team and staffing matters when the Head of Service is absent. You may be required to support and mentor junior members of the team to secure RICS qualification.

For a full and detailed list of the key responsibilities please refer to this linked Job Description.

Key Skills: 

(Please note these will be used as shortlisting criteria)

1. Ability to make sound pragmatic problem-solving decisions, which will have a wider service impact. Ability to analyse and make judgements based on principles to tackle difficult problems of a technical, professional, resource or people related nature.

2. Sound partnership working skills including the successful co-ordination of partners to deliver objectives.

3. Ability to challenge existing practices and identify innovative solutions with a good understanding of investment option appraisal, and financial and budget management skills.

4. Ability to undertake effective research, based on previous valuation experience, and evaluate and interpret relevant property issues to derive conclusions and plan over the short to medium term.

5. Excellent communication and negotiation skills with the ability to successfully influence and persuade others and negotiate effective business solutions. Sensitivity and political awareness are important.

6. Effective people management and performance management skills with the ability to provide direction, leadership and support to individuals and teams.

Qualifications and/or experience

• Qualified member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) with significant post qualification experience.
• Post-graduate professional qualification relevant to Property, Surveying, Estates and Valuation, or equivalent level of significant experience demonstrating comprehensive application of the above levels of knowledge in a relevant setting across a number of specialist fields.
• Extensive expert level experience in surveying, property and estate management including landlord and tenant and planning law, property acquisitions and disposals, land transactions and property development (preferably with experience of a County Council or Unitary Authority in the public sector)
• Extensive experience of negotiations to secure rent reviews, lease acquisitions or renewals of high value commercial property with high value rent rolls (e.g. in excess of £1m).
• Extensive experience as Client lead in development or construction projects with multiple commercial tenants and or building contractors, specialist technical advisors for multi million pound projects.
• Expert specialist, theoretical knowledge relating to property and planning procedures and sound practical and theoretical knowledge of the political environment of local government and partner organisations.
• Advanced and accurate IT knowledge e.g. Microsoft Office and Property Databases, valuation software, maps and plans.
• Significant experience dealing with complex issues and assembling, delivering and co-ordinating a quality service to a range of customers and clients.
• Experience of managing budgets and/or contributing to financially related decisions on larger spends.
• Experience of managing / leading staff and professional teams.

For further information about the position please follow this link to take you to the job description to enable you to use the key skills in your application.

Rewards and Benefits

• Access to our Employee Assistance Programme, we are committed to providing a healthy work life balance.
• You will benefit from a generous amount of annual leave, plus the opportunity to buy additional leave, an excellent local government pension scheme as well as a range of discounts giving our staff access to hundreds of offers.
• For more information about the wide variety of benefits, you can take advantage of please visit our Rewards and Benefits page.

Further Information

The reference number for this role is (107).

For further information regarding the role; please contact Elaine Sanders (Head of Assets

Asset Management and Estates) elaine.sanders@westsussex.gov.uk For an informal conversation regarding the application process, please contact Rachael Doolan (Recruitment Specialist) at Rachael.Doolan@westsussex.gov.uk 

How to Apply

Click apply below, upload your CV and cover letter. Your cover letter should:

• Outline your motivations for applying.
• Explain the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills in the attached job description to show what skills you have and your level of experience utilising these skills).

Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to right to work within the UK, enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, satisfactory references, and a health check.

Equity, inclusion and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success. 

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver. More information can be found on our application help page.