Senior Project Manager – Real Estate Development – Al-Futtaim Group

Al-Futtaim is hiring a Senior Project Manager to lead real estate development projects in Dubai, sitting within one of the region’s largest privately held groups with a substantial real estate and property portfolio. This is a delivery-focused leadership role: owning projects from planning through execution, with direct accountability for keeping them aligned with approved scope, budget, and timeline.

The day-to-day work centers on maintaining alignment with approved project requirements throughout the development lifecycle — coordinating design, construction, and consultant teams, tracking progress against milestones, and managing the inevitable changes and risks that come with a real estate development project of any real scale. A meaningful part of the role also involves identifying opportunities to integrate Al-Futtaim’s own brand products and services into projects where relevant, connecting the development work to the group’s wider commercial ecosystem rather than treating it as a standalone construction exercise.

This suits a senior project manager with a solid track record in real estate or construction project delivery, comfortable owning stakeholder relationships across internal and external teams — architects, contractors, consultants, and Al-Futtaim’s own business units. Strong governance discipline matters here: this is a role that requires keeping a project honest against its original scope and budget as pressures to change both inevitably arise.

Real estate development projects carry significant capital exposure, and the difference between a project that stays aligned with its approved scope and budget and one that drifts is measured in real money, not just schedule slippage. A senior project manager who keeps a project honest against its original requirements — catching scope creep early, managing risk proactively, and holding contractors and consultants to their commitments — directly protects the return on a substantial capital investment. Beyond the individual project, consistent delivery discipline also protects Al-Futtaim's broader reputation as a developer, which matters for future partnerships, financing terms, and the group's standing with regulators and joint venture partners in the region's real estate market. The role's mandate to integrate Al-Futtaim's own brand products and services into projects adds another layer of value, connecting individual developments back into the group's wider commercial ecosystem rather than treating each project in isolation. In a market where real estate development timelines and budgets are watched closely by stakeholders, strong project governance at this level is what keeps ambitious plans from becoming expensive lessons.

Leading real estate development projects for a group with Al-Futtaim's scale and portfolio breadth gives a senior project manager exposure to genuinely large, complex developments — the kind of project scale and stakeholder complexity that's harder to access at smaller developers or single-project construction firms. Because the role also involves connecting projects to Al-Futtaim's wider brand and business ecosystem, it builds broader commercial awareness beyond pure construction delivery, which is exactly the kind of cross-functional experience that differentiates a project manager ready for a Head of Development or Director-level role from one who's only ever managed delivery in isolation. Working within one of the region's most established private groups also provides access to strong governance frameworks, experienced internal stakeholders, and a well-resourced project delivery environment, all of which sharpen project management discipline faster than a less structured environment would. The regional real estate and construction market places significant value on demonstrated delivery track records with major developers, and a role of this scope and seniority becomes a strong reference point for future opportunities, whether within Al-Futtaim's own expanding portfolio or with other major developers in the market. For a project manager building toward development director or program leadership roles, this combination of scale, governance rigor, and commercial context is difficult to replicate elsewhere.

• Proven experience as a Senior Project Manager in real estate development or large-scale construction projects
• Strong track record managing project scope, budget, and timeline through to delivery
• Experience coordinating multidisciplinary teams — design, construction, consultants, and internal stakeholders
• Professional project management qualification (PMP or equivalent) is an advantage
• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, construction management, real estate, or a related field
• Strong stakeholder management and governance/reporting discipline