Commercial Manager

Would you like to join our excellent, high-performing team?

About Sygna:

Sygna is a fully independent, international leader in commissioning and technical project management. We specialise in delivering high-performance building solutions for data centres, commercial offices, gigafactories, pharmaceutical laboratories, and historic buildings.

From project inception and commissioning to post-occupancy evaluation, we certify building services and technology systems, ensuring your design is delivered accurately, efficiently, and reliably.

December 2023 marked a significant milestone with the EMEA senior management team successfully completing a management buy-out (MBO) of Sygna (EMEA).

Following the MBO, Sygna is experiencing record-breaking growth. Under the full ownership of our senior leadership team, we are committed to expanding our client relationships, delivering best-in-class commissioning services, and driving innovation in technical project management across global markets.

Why join Sygna?

Are you someone who takes pride in delivering outstanding results, possesses excellent communication and interpersonal skills, and has an exceptional eye for detail? If so, we want YOU to be a part of our team.

Job Description:

As Commercial Manager, you will drive and protect the commercial performance of Sygna projects across EMEA. Working closely with Operations, Finance and delivery teams, you will analyse project profitability, resource utilisation, costs and revenue recovery, and challenge delivery assumptions to improve project outcomes. You will maintain credible forward-looking forecasts, identify emerging risks and opportunities early, and ensure lessons from delivery inform future tenders and pricing.

Key Outline Duties:

The responsibilities below are not exhaustive and may evolve in line with business requirements:

Project Commercial Performance & Forecasting

• Lead regular project commercial reviews with Operations, comparing actual and forecast performance against budgets, contractual allowances and original tender assumptions.
• Maintain rolling forecasts of project revenue, committed costs, cost to complete, gross margin and anticipated profitability at completion.
• Identify and explain variances, margin erosion, potential losses and opportunities for recovery, with clear actions, owners and deadlines.
• Challenge resource plans, programme extensions, delivery assumptions and forecast expenditure to ensure credible and timely project forecasts.
• Produce concise project and portfolio performance reporting for Divisional Directors and senior management.

Resource Utilisation & Recovery

• Monitor resource allocation, deployment, utilisation, chargeability and commercial recovery, comparing available and planned capacity with actual billed or recoverable revenue.
• Analyse labour, overtime, subcontractor, travel, accommodation, rotation and other project-related disbursement costs against agreed allowances and recovery mechanisms.
• Identify non-chargeable time, under-recovery, unbilled activities and avoidable costs, working with Operations to deliver corrective actions.
• Challenge inefficient deployment and assess the commercial consequences of changes to staffing levels, project duration and delivery strategy.

Contract Management & Profit Protection

• Review appointments, contracts, purchase orders and commercial terms to understand scope, fee structures, rates, deliverables, change provisions and invoicing requirements.
• Identify, evidence, value and progress changes, additional services, extensions, variations and other out-of-scope work through to approval and recovery.
• Maintain commercial risk, change-control and recovery registers, escalating disputed or overdue items promptly.
• Support timely and accurate billing forecasts by ensuring, completed work/time, milestone entitlements and supporting commercial evidence are captured and communicated to Finance. Ensuring all completed and contractually billable work is identified, valued and confirmed.

Tendering, Pricing & Commercial Improvement

• Support Sales and bid teams with resource-based cost build-ups, tender pricing, fee proposals, target margins, contract risk and commercial delivery assumptions.
• Understand subcontractor costs, regional requirements, travel, accommodation,other disbursements and how these impact pricing. Exploring alternative options if any of these factors negatively impact competitiveness.
• Compare actual resource usage and project costs with tender allowances; feed lessons learnt into future bids and pricing decisions.
• Help establish consistent commercial controls and practices across the divisions, reflecting differences between client-side consultancy and contractor-side delivery.

Reporting, Systems & Collaboration

• Provide monthly commentary on forecast gross profit, utilisation and recovery, margin movements, commercial risks and agreed improvement actions.
• Work alongside Finance to ensure operational forecasts, project delivery progress and billable work remain aligned with accounting records.
• Improve accuracy and timely allocation of timesheets, resource plans, project costs, change evidence and commercial data.
• Support the teams in improving operational project dashboards, forecasting tools, reporting and commercial queries as required.

Candidate Profile:

• Proven experience in commercial management, quantity surveying or project cost management within construction, M&E, engineering, technical consultancy or project-based services.
• Strong understanding of cost-to-complete forecasting, project margin management, labour utilisation, change control, contractual recovery and tender pricing.
• A track record of identifying commercial risks early, challenging project teams constructively and implementing practical improvements to profitability.
• Experience preparing resource-based cost build-ups, analysing delivery costs and updatingdisbursement allowances.
• Advanced Excel and financial modelling skills; able to convert complex project and resource data into reliable forecasts and decisions.
• Familiarity with ERP platforms and project management system, particularly Microsoft Dynamics 365, would be beneficial but is not a prerequisite..
• Excellent communication, negotiation and influencing skills, with the confidence to work directly with project teams and senior operational leaders.
• A relevant qualification in quantity surveying, construction management, commercial management or finance is advantageous; substantial relevant experience will also be considered.

What Success Looks Like:

• Accurate and timely project gross margin and outturn forecasts, with early escalation of potential losses.
• Improved utilisation and recovery of labour, subcontractor and project disbursement costs.
• Lower revenue leakage and stronger evidence and recovery of variations and additional services.
• Future tenders informed by actual project costs, resource performance and lessons learnt.
• Clearer commercial accountability and action across Sygna delivery teams.

Benefits include but are not limited to:

• Competitive Salaries
• Pension contributions
• Private healthcare 
• Regular employee socials
• Business travel insurance
• 25 days annual leave each calendar year (pro-rated from start date) plus bank holidays. After 5 years of service this will increase to 30 days.
• Buy or Sell Annual Leave Scheme 
• Training and development opportunities
• Exclusive discounts on a wide range of products and services, including gift cards from brands like Argos, B&Q, Costa, M&S, and Sainsbury's.
• Referral Scheme
• Cycle to Work Scheme 
• Interest Free Travel Loan

Our clients trust us to ensure the highest standards are delivered and we are looking for people who have a can-do attitude and share our enthusiasm for exceeding customer expectations.

If that sounds like you then lets talk.

If this job is not quite right for you but you like Sygna as much as we do, then reach out to us too; We have ambitious plans, and you may be the perfect fit for the next stage of our adventure.

We offer a competitive remuneration package commensurate with qualifications and experience to the right candidate.

Note:

The general responsibilities listed herein above are not exhaustive and as such additional duties, which are related to this position in the Company, may be added to the above list at the discretion of the EMEA Managing Director as and when it is deemed necessary. Similarly, as the company grows, there should be an expectation that job roles will be refined over time, to accommodate collaboration with new and existing colleagues.

The schedule of delegated authority (SODA) applies to this role and shall always be adhered to without exception.

We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applications from all qualified candidates. The information provided will be treated in strict confidence. Personal data collected will be used for recruitment purposes only.